Combining in situ and satellite observations to understand the vertical structure of tropical anvil cloud microphysical properties during the TC4 experiment

Tropical anvil clouds have a profound impact on Earth's weather and climate. Their role in Earth's energy balance and hydrologic cycle is heavily modulated by the vertical structure of the microphysical properties for various hydrometeors in these clouds and their dependence on the ambient environmental conditions. Accurate representations of the variability and covariability of such vertical structures are key to both the satellite remote sensing of cloud and precipitation and numerical modeling of weather and climate, which remain a challenge. This study presents a new method to combine vertically resolved observations from CloudSat radar reflectivity and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation cloud masks with probability distributions of cloud microphysical properties and the ambient atmospheric conditions from detailed in situ measurements on tropical anvils sampled during the National Aeronautics and Space Administration TC4 (Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling) mission. We focus on the microphysical properties of the vertical distribution of ice water content, particle size distributions, and effective sizes for different hydrometeors, including ice particles and supercooled liquid droplets. Results from this method are compared with those from in situ data alone and various CloudSat/Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation cloud retrievals. The sampling limitation of the field experiment and algorithm limitations in the current retrievals is highlighted, especially for the liquid cloud particles, while a generally good agreement with ice cloud microphysical properties is seen from different methods. While the method presented in this study is applied to tropical anvil clouds observed during TC4, it can be readily employed to study a broad range of ice clouds sampled by various field campaigns.

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Related Dataset #1 : Generated datasets for Yue et al. (2020, Earth and Space Science): "Combining In-situ and Satellite Observations to Understand the Vertical Structure of Tropical Anvil Cloud Microphysical Properties During the TC4 Experiment"
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Author Yue, Qing
Jiang, Jonathan H.
Heymsfield, Andrew
Liou, Kuo‐Nan
Gu, Yu
Sinha, Arushi
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2020-04-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:35:43.036871
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:23365
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Yue, Qing, Jiang, Jonathan H., Heymsfield, Andrew, Liou, Kuo‐Nan, Gu, Yu, Sinha, Arushi. (2020). Combining in situ and satellite observations to understand the vertical structure of tropical anvil cloud microphysical properties during the TC4 experiment. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7cj8hqq. Accessed 12 May 2025.

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