Validation of Cloud Liquid Water Path Retrievals from SEVIRI Using One Year of CloudNET Observations

Abstract The accuracy and precision are determined of cloud liquid water path (LWP) retrievals from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) on board Meteosat-8 using 1 yr of LWP retrievals from microwave radiometer (MWR) measurements of two CloudNET stations in northern Europe. The MWR retrievals of LWP have a precision that is superior to current satellite remote sensing techniques, which justifies their use as validation data. The Cloud Physical Properties (CPP) algorithm of the Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM-SAF) is used to retrieve LWP from SEVIRI reflectances at 0.6 and 1.6 μm. The results show large differences in the accuracy and precision of LWP retrievals from SEVIRI between summer and winter. During summer, the instantaneous LWP retrievals from SEVIRI agree well with those from the MWRs. The accuracy is better than 5 g m−2 and the precision is better than 30 g m−2, which is similar to the precision of LWP retrievals from MWR. The added value of the 15...