Clouds play a key role in balancing incoming and outgoing solar and thermal radiation. This is a critical process in the earth-atmosphere system. Monitoring cloud height, particle size, particle concentration, etc. are integral to understanding climate dynamics and global climate change. These physical attributes determine the radiative forcing effect of a cloud, or how much incoming radiation that a cloud reflects back to space. Satellites and ground-based radar can measure the cloud top height (CTH). However, inconsistencies exist between various satellites and radar data due to different detection methods and algorithms used to process raw information.
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Source: Phys.org