Why we need radar, lidar, and solar radiance observations to constrain ice cloud microphysics

Ewald, Florian; Groß, Silke; Wirth, Martin; Delanoë, Julien; Fox, Stuart; Mayer, Bernhard

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021

Articles | Volume 14, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 7

Research article

|

23 Jul 2021

Research article |

| 23 Jul 2021

Why we need radar, lidar, and solar radiance observations to constrain ice cloud microphysics

Florian Ewald, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, Julien Delanoë, Stuart Fox, and Bernhard Mayer

Data sets

A unified data set of airborne cloud remote sensing using the HALO Microwave Package (HAMP) Heike Konow, Marek Jacob, Felix Ament, Susanne Crewell, Florian Ewald, Martin Hagen, Lutz Hirsch, Friedhelm Jansen, Mario Mech, and Bjorn Stevens https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-11-921-2019

HALO database German Aerospace Center (DLR) https://halo-db.pa.op.dlr.de

EUMETCast EUMETSAT https://www.eumetsat.int/eumetcast

Short summary

In this study, we show how solar radiance observations can be used to validate and further constrain ice cloud microphysics retrieved from the synergy of radar–lidar measurements. Since most radar–lidar retrievals rely on a global assumption about the ice particle shape, ice water content and particle size biases are to be expected in individual cloud regimes. In this work, we identify and correct these biases by reconciling simulated and measured solar radiation reflected from these clouds.