Riming-dependent snowfall rate and ice water content retrievals for W-band cloud radar

Maherndl, Nina; Battaglia, Alessandro; Kötsche, Anton; Maahn, Maximilian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3287-2025

Articles | Volume 18, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3287-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-3287-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 14

Research article

|

21 Jul 2025

Research article |

| 21 Jul 2025

Riming-dependent snowfall rate and ice water content retrievals for W-band cloud radar

Nina Maherndl, Alessandro Battaglia, Anton Kötsche, and Maximilian Maahn

Data sets

Video In Situ Snowfall Sensor (VISSS) data for Ny-Ålesund (July 2022 - December 2023) Maximilian Maahn and Nina Maherndl https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.965766

Video In Situ Snowfall Sensor (VISSS) data for Ny-Ålesund (2021-2022) Maximilian Maahn and Nina Maherndl https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.958537

Video In Situ Snowfall Sensor (VISSS) data for Hyytiälä (2021-2022) Maximilian Maahn and Dmitri Moisseev https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.959046

Surface Meteorological Instrumentation (MET) Jenni Kyrouac et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1786358

MWR Retrievals (MWRRET1LILJCLOU) D. Zhang https://doi.org/10.5439/1027369

VISSS raw data from SAIL at gothic from November 2022 to june 2023 M. Maahn et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/2278627

Leipzig university W-band cloud radar, gothic (colorado), SAIL campaign second winter (15.11.2022 - 05.06.2023) H. Kalesse-Los et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/2229846

Custom collection of microwave radiometer, radar, and weather station data from Hyyti{\"{a}}l{\"{a}} between 1 Jan 2022 and 30 Apr 2024 D. Moisseev and T. Petäjä https://doi.org/10.60656/a7b4af702fc04dd6

Custom collection of microwave radiometer, and radar data from Ny-Åesund between 1 Jan 2023 and 31 Mar 2024 K. Ebell and C. Ritter https://doi.org/10.60656/c86dcce9d89b4532

Custom collection of microwave radiometer data from Eriswil between 1 and 31 Jan 2024 P. Seifert https://doi.org/10.60656/1395b12207d14848

Short summary

Accurate measurements of ice water content (IWC) and snowfall rate (SR) are challenging due to high spatial variability and limitations of our measurement techniques. Here, we present a novel method to derive IWC and SR from W-band cloud radar observations, considering the degree of riming. We also investigate the use of the liquid water path (LWP) as a proxy for the occurrence of riming. LWP is easier to measure, so that the method can be applied to both ground-based and space-based instruments.