Abstract

The importance of understanding the radiative and microphysical properties of cirrus clouds in weather and climate research has been articulated by Liou (1986). This importance has also been recognized in view of the intensive field observations that have been conducted as a major component of the First ISCCP Regional Experiment (FIRE) in October-November 1986 (Starr 1987) and more recently in November-December 1991 (FIRE-II) as well as the European experiments on cirrus (ICE/EUCREX) that has been carried out in 1989. One of the fundamental objectives of the FIRE program has been and is to apply the field campaign and theoretical results to develop and verify improved techniques for the inference of cloud radiative and microphysical properties from satellite and surface-based data.

© 1995 Optical Society of America