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Toward a quantitative characterization of heterogeneous ice formation with lidar/radar: Comparison of CALIPSO/CloudSat with ground‐based observations
Author(s) -
Bühl J.,
Ansmann A.,
Seifert P.,
Baars H.,
Engelmann R.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/grl.50792
Subject(s) - lidar , remote sensing , pathfinder , radar , environmental science , satellite , meteorology , geology , geography , computer science , physics , telecommunications , astronomy , library science
We analyze and compare the different sensitivities of aerosol/cloud lidar and 35‐GHz cloud radar to detect ice formation in midlevel clouds in order to harmonize mixed phase cloud observations performed with lidar and radar. We found good agreement between spaceborne Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO)/CloudSat and ground‐based lidar/radar observations at Leipzig, Germany. However, large differences were found to a previous study with an 11‐year cloud statistics solely based on lidar observations which is caused by significantly higher sensitivity of the cloud radar to detect ice crystals. By introducing a lidar detection threshold for the ice water content of 10 −6 kgm −3 , we find that lidar and radar cloud statistics become increasingly similar.