Horizontal geometry of trade wind cumuli – aircraft observations from a shortwave infrared imager versus a radar profiler

Dorff, Henning; Konow, Heike; Ament, Felix

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3641-2022

Articles | Volume 15, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3641-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3641-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 12

Research article

|

17 Jun 2022

Research article |

| 17 Jun 2022

Horizontal geometry of trade wind cumuli – aircraft observations from a shortwave infrared imager versus a radar profiler

Henning Dorff, Heike Konow, and Felix Ament

Data sets

HALO Microwave Package measurements during Next-generation Remote sensing for VALidation Studies 2 (NARVAL2) H. Konow, M. Jacob, F. Ament, S. Crewell, F. Ewald, M. Hagen, L. Hirsch, F. Jansen, M. Mech, and B. Stevens https://doi.org/10.1594/WDCC/HALO_measurements_3

specMACS cloud mask F. Gödde and T. Kölling https://macsserver.physik.uni-muenchen.de/campaigns/NARVAL-II/products/cloudmask/

Short summary

This study elaborates how aircraft-based horizontal geometries of trade wind cumuli differ whether a one-dimensional profiling radar or a two-dimensional imager is used. Cloud size distributions are examined in terms of sensitivity to sample size, resolution, and instrument field of view. While the radar cannot reproduce the double power law distribution due to coarse resolution and restriction to vertical transects, the imager also reveals the elliptic cloud structure enhancing with wind speed.