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The Mass‐Dimensional Properties of Cirrus Clouds During TC4
Author(s) -
Mascio Jeana,
Xu Zhuocan,
Mace Gerald G.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1002/2017jd026787
Subject(s) - cirrus , ice crystals , radar , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , precipitation , remote sensing , range (aeronautics) , ice cloud , meteorology , materials science , geology , geography , physics , radiative transfer , optics , computer science , composite material , telecommunications
Remote sensing retrievals and ice microphysical parameterizations in global climate models typically use assumptions about the distribution of ice mass as a function of particle size using mass‐dimensional (m‐D) relationships. This study investigates the ice crystal m‐D properties of tropical anvil cirrus during the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling Experiment (TC4) to better document the distribution of ice mass with size in this particular class of tropical ice clouds. Two optimal estimation algorithms (XIWC and MZ) are used to estimate the m‐D relationship for each particle size distribution (PSD) collected in situ. The XIWC algorithm minimizes the difference between measured ice water content (IWC) and PSD calculated IWC, while the MZ algorithm minimizes the difference between measured radar reflectivity factors and those calculated from the in situ PSDs. Results from these algorithms are compared to previous studies to establish consistency of the methodologies. The XIWC results show that both parameters in the m‐D relationship increase with temperature. Changes in m‐D with temperature have substantial implications for remote sensing retrievals. With the prefactor varying by a factor of 5 and the exponent varying by some 16% over a typical range of ice cloud temperatures, forward modeling errors in radar reflectivity could be typically in excess of 5 dB, further suggesting that retrievals of IWC and precipitation rates from radar measurements in ice clouds be in error by factors easily exceeding 3.