Articles | Volume 15, issue 13
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3969-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-3969-2022
Research article
 | 
05 Jul 2022
Research article |  | 05 Jul 2022

Retrievals of ice microphysical properties using dual-wavelength polarimetric radar observations during stratiform precipitation events

Eleni Tetoni, Florian Ewald, Martin Hagen, Gregor Köcher, Tobias Zinner, and Silke Groß

Data sets

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1979 to present H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, G. Biavati, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, I. Rozum, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, D. Dee, and J.-N. Thépaut https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

MODIS atmosphere L2 cloud product (06_L2) S. Platnick, S. A. Ackerman, M. D. King, K. Meyer, W. P. Menzel, R. E. Holz, B. A. Baum, and P. Yang https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD06_L2.006

Radiosonde data University of Wyoming (UW) http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html

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Short summary
We use the C-band POLDIRAD and the Ka-band MIRA-35 to perform snowfall dual-wavelength polarimetric radar measurements. We develop an ice microphysics retrieval for mass, apparent shape, and median size of the particle size distribution by comparing observations to T-matrix ice spheroid simulations while varying the mass–size relationship. We furthermore show how the polarimetric measurements from POLDIRAD help to narrow down ambiguities between ice particle shape and size.