Normalization of cirrus particle size distributions from SPARTICUS, MACPEX, and TC4: comparison with results from older data sets
Authors
Michael Christian Schwartz — Space Dynamics Laboratory
Gerald Mace — University of Utah
Paul Lawson — SPEC, Inc.
Eric Jensen — NASA - Ames Research Center
Category
Cloud Properties
Description
The normalization of raindrop particle size distributions (Testud et al. 2001) was developed in order to compare drop-size distributions in different parts of raining systems. This formalism has been extended to ice particle size distributions (PSDs), e.g., by Delanoe et al. (2005). Here, the normalization method proposed by Delanoe et al. is applied to more recently measured data in order to see how well the results of their normalization (i.e., their fit of the normalized PSD) compare with the application of their same method to PSDs that have been corrected for the mitigation of ice shattering effects. It is found that the formulation of the normalized PSD suggested by Delanoe et al. do not provide a good fit to the normalized ice PSD obtained from the Small Particles In Cirrus (SPARTICUS), Midlatitude Airborne Cirrus Properties Experiment (MACPEX), and Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) data sets. Particular attention is paid to the comparison of populations of PSD moments reconstructed from the normalized PSD stemming from the newer data sets and from the formulation suggested by Delanoe et al. The simple conclusion is that more cirrus campaigns, using modern particle size probes and shattering mitigation processing, are needed to more fully and more accurately characterize cirrus PSDs.
