Articles | Volume 14, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6885-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6885-2021
Research article
 | 
26 Oct 2021
Research article |  | 26 Oct 2021

Retrieving microphysical properties of concurrent pristine ice and snow using polarimetric radar observations

Nicholas J. Kedzuf, J. Christine Chiu, V. Chandrasekar, Sounak Biswas, Shashank S. Joshil, Yinghui Lu, Peter Jan van Leeuwen, Christopher Westbrook, Yann Blanchard, and Sebastian O'Shea

Data sets

FAAM C081 PICASSO flight: Airborne atmospheric measurements from core and non-core instrument suites on board the BAE-146 aircraft Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM), Natural Environment Research Council, and Met Office https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/64c9279112bb4e0cadb6adaebf1141eb

NCAS mobile X-band radar scan data from 1st November 2016 to 4th June 2018 deployed on long-term observations at the Chilbolton Facility for Atmospheric and Radio Research (CFARR) L. Bennett https://doi.org/10.5285/ffc9ed384aea471dab35901cf62f70be

A polarimetric scattering database for non-spherical ice particles at microwave wavelengths (https://adc.arm.gov/discovery/#/results/instrument_class_code::icepart-mod) Y. Lu, Z. Jiang, K. Aydin, J. Verlinde, E. E. Clothiaux, and G. Botta https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-5119-2016

cjchiurams/PICASSO-IceSnowProperties: v1.0.0 J. C. Chiu https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5590209

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Short summary
Ice clouds play a key role in our climate system due to their strong controls on precipitation and the radiation budget. However, it is difficult to characterize co-existing ice species using radar observations. We present a new method that separates the radar signals of pristine ice embedded in snow aggregates and retrieves their respective abundances and sizes for the first time. The ability to provide their quantitative microphysical properties will open up many research opportunities.