Identification

Title

The microwave radiative properties of falling snow derived from nonspherical ice particle models. Part I: An extensive database of simulated pristine crystals and aggregate particles, and their scattering properties

Abstract

A 3D growth model is used to simulate pristine ice crystals, which are aggregated using a collection algorithm to create larger, multicrystal particles. The simulated crystals and aggregates have mass-versus-size and fractal properties that are consistent with field observations. The growth/collection model is used to generate a large database of snow particles, and the single-scattering properties of each particle are computed using the discrete dipole approximation to account for the nonspherical geometries of the particles. At 13.6 and 35.5 GHz, the bulk radar reflectivities of nonspherical snow particle polydispersions differ from those of more approximate spherical, homogeneous, ice–air particle polydispersions that have the same particle size distributions, although the reflectivities of the nonspherical particles are roughly approximated by polydispersions of spheres of 0.1-0.2 g cm-3 density. At higher microwave frequencies, such as 165.5 GHz, the bulk extinction (and scattering) coefficients of the nonspherical snow polydispersions are comparable to those of low-density spheres, but the asymmetry parameters of the nonspherical particles are substantially less than those of spheres for a broad range of assumed spherical particle densities. Because of differences in the asymmetry of scatter, simulated microwave-scattering depressions using nonspherical particles may well exceed those of spheres for snow layers with the same vertical water path. It may be concluded that, in precipitation remote sensing applications that draw upon input from radar and/or radiometer observations spanning a range of microwave frequencies, nonspherical snow particle models should be used to properly interpret the observations.

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document

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http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d77h1m5j

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eng

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geoscientificInformation

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title

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publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

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2016-03-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2016 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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None

Responsible organisations

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OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

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pointOfContact

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