Inter-Calibration of nine UV sensing instruments over Antarctica and Greenland since 1980: impact on global UV cloud albedo trends

A suite of NASA/NOAA UV (340nm) sensing satellite instruments, starting with Nimbus-7 SBUV in 1980, provides a global long-term record of cloud trends and cloud response from ENSO events. We present new method to inter-calibrate the radiances of all the SBUV instruments and the Suomi NPP OMPS mapper over both the East Antarctic Plateau and Greenland ice sheets during summer. First, the strong solar zenith angle dependence from the intensities are removed using an empirical approach rather than a radiative transfer model. Then small multiplicative adjustments are made to these solar zenith angle normalized intensities in order to minimize differences when two or more instruments temporally overlap. While the calibrated intensities show a negligible long-term trend over Antarctica, and a statistically insignificant UV albedo trend of -0.05 % per decade over the interior of Greenland, there are small episodic reductions in intensities which are often seen by multiple instruments. Three of these darkening events are explained by boreal forest fires using trajectory modeling analysis. Other events are caused by surface melting or volcanoes. We estimate a 2-sigma uncertainty of 0.35% for the calibrated radiances. Finally, we connect the estimated radiance uncertainties, derived from our calibration approach, to the tropical and midlatitude UV cloud albedo trends.