Comparison of Liquid Water Content Retrievals for Airborne Millimeter-Wave Radar with Different Particle Parameter Schemes

Abstract

In the application of the physical iterative method to retrieve millimeter-wave radar liquid water content (LWC) and liquid water path (LWP), particle parameter scheme is the main factor affecting retrieval performance. In this paper, synchronous measurements of an airborne millimeter-wave radar and a hot-wire probe in stratus cloud are used to compare the LWC retrievals of the oceanic and continental particle parameter scheme with diameter less than 50μm and the particle parameter scheme with diameter less than 500μm and 1500μm (scheme 1, scheme 2, scheme 3, and scheme 4, respectively). The results show that the particle parameter scheme needs to be selected according to the reflectivity factor when using the physical iterative method to retrieve the LWC and LWP. When the reflectivity factor is less than - 30dBZ, the retrieval error of scheme 1 is the minimum. When the reflectivity factor is greater than -30dBZ, the retrieval error of scheme 4 is the minimum. Based on the reflectance factor value, the LWP retrievals of scheme 4 are closer to the measurements, the average relative bias is 5.2%, and the minimum relative bias is 4.4 %. Compared with other schemes, scheme 4 seems to be more useful for the LWC and LWP retrieval of stratus cloud in China.