Melting layer height estimation using Ka-band cloud radars

 

Authors


Seong Soo Yum — Yonsei University

Category

General topics – Clouds

Description

The thermal profile of cloud is crucial for understanding the behavior of clouds, as they affect vertical movement inside clouds. Yet, measuring the profiles of thick clouds using remote sensing instruments is limited due to their radiative properties. Instead, the thermal profile can be assumed by detecting melting layer height where liquid and ice water coexist at 0 ℃. Such coexistence leads to unique scattering characteristics inside the layer, so that makes the layer detectable. Some previous studies took efforts to detect melting layer with several instruments but they did not include cloud radar. Using cloud radar for detecting melting layer is beneficial since long-term cloud radar observation data with high spatiotemporal resolution are available at multiple ARM facilities. Here, we propose a melting layer detection method using the data from cloud radars (i.e. MMCR and KAZR) installed at several ARM facilities and one in South Korea. The detection method utilizes reflectivity, linear depolarization ratio, and vertical velocity, which are very basic measurements for cloud radars. Then, we validate the method with the temperature at the retrieved melting layer height from the ERA5 reanalysis data. We also compare the characteristics of melting layer height estimated at different sites to achieve an insight on the climatological effects. Details will be discussed at the meeting.