H208-07
Single-Scattering Properties of Melting Precipitation for GPM Passive Microwave and Radar Remote Sensing Applications
Wednesday, 16 December 2020: 11:54
Virtual
William S Olson, Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, Baltimore, MD, United States, Adrian Loftus, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, COLLEGE PARK, MD, United States, Kwo-Sen Kuo, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States, Craig Pelissier, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Computational and Information Science & Technology Office, Greenbelt, MD, United States, Benjamin Johnson, Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, Silver Spring, MD, United States, Robert Schrom, Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, MD, United States, Stephen J Munchak, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, United States, Mircea Grecu, Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research, Greenbelt, MD, United States, Stephen Joseph Munchak, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States and Thomas Clune, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States
Abstract:
Over the past two decades, detailed computational simulations of the intricate three-dimensional structures of ice-phase crystals and aggregates of those crystals have been developed.
The microwave single-scattering properties of these simulated ice particles have been computed and used to improve quantitative estimates of snow rates and to better define the vertical structure of snow water contents in deep convective systems, as derived from satellite-borne passive microwave and/or radar remote sensing measurements.
The same ice-phase particles have more recently been used as the starting point for simulations of melting precipitation using computational melting methods.
In the current study, a heuristic melting method, as well as a physically-based melting procedure based on smoothed-particle hydrodynamics, are applied to ice particle models to describe the full evolution of the particles from dry snow to liquid drops. The discrete dipole approximation is utilized to calculate the single-scattering properties of the mixed-phase particles throughout the melting process. Then, the properties of the particles are “mapped” into simplified microphysical simulations of particle size spectra in the melting layers of stratiform, precipitating clouds. The bulk single-scattering properties of the melting layers and the sensitivity of their properties to modeling assumptions are explored, and the implications for combined radar-radiometer precipitation remote sensing from GPM are discussed.
