ewan oconnor, robin hogan, anthony illingworth, nicolas gaussiat liquid water path from microwave...
TRANSCRIPT
• Ewan O’Connor, Robin Hogan, Anthony Illingworth, Nicolas Gaussiat
Liquid water path frommicrowave radiometers
– Take radiative transfer model (RTM)• Choose from Liebe, Rosenkranz etc.
– Model atmospheric attenuation at surface
LWP Retrieval
Attenuation due to oxygen
Attenuation due to water
vapour: typical values
Niamey – humidChilbolton - dry
– Note that water vapour path varies from site to site. Shape of peak near 20 GHz varies with amount of saturation.
– No liquid clouds yet!
LWP Retrieval
Attenuation due to oxygen
Attenuation due to water vapour: fully
saturated
Niamey – humidChilbolton - dry
– Add liquid water layer 1 km deep with LWC = 1 g m-3. – Attenuation depends on temperature (dielectric constant)
LWP Retrieval
20 C
0 C
Chilbolton – typical atmosphere, no cloud
-20 C
Note: dielectric constant not well known for supercooled liquid water!
Dual wavelength microwave radiometer
– Brightness temperatures -> Liquid water path– Improved technique – Nicolas Gaussiat
• Use lidar to determine whether clear sky or not• Adjust coefficients to account for instrument drift• Removes offset for low LWP
Dual wavelength microwave radiometer
– Brightness temperatures -> Liquid water path– Improved technique – Nicolas Gaussiat
• Use lidar to determine whether clear sky or not• Adjust coefficients to account for instrument drift• Removes offset for low LWP
LWP - initialLWP - lidar corrected
Radiometrics MP1516A• Water vapor profiler
– 21 frequencies from 22-30 GHz• Possible to determine profile of humidity
– Half-power beamwidth 6.3-4.9 degrees
Brightness temperatures
Interested in LWP• Column integrated liquid water
– Warm liquid layers usually have 100-500 g m-2
– Supercooled layers may have as little as 10-20g m-2 • This is close to the uncertainty in the radiative transfer models
Case: 6 October 2008
Case: 10 October 2008
Case: 5 October 2008
Conclusions• Radiometrics algorithm misses low values
– Any values close to or less than 0 set to 0• Assumed to be noise• Can be caused by a slight offset • Problematic for supercooled clouds
• Noise is useful check!– Can see how algorithm is performing– Spot drifts in
• Instrument• Synoptic conditions
– Can average to retrieve low LWP in certain situations