Ground validation of oceanic snowfall detection in satellite climatologies during LOFZY

Abstract

A thorough knowledge of global ocean precipitation is an indispensable prerequisite for the understanding of the water cycle in the global climate system. However, reliable detection of precipitation over the global oceans, especially of solid precipitation, remains a challenging task. This is true for both, passive microwave remote sensing and reanalysis based model estimates. The optical disdrometer ODM 470 is a ground validation instrument capable of measuring rain and snowfall on ships even under high wind speeds. It was used for the first time over the Nordic Seas during the LOFZY 2005 campaign. A dichotomous verification of precipitation occurrence resulted in a perfect correspondence between the disdrometer, a precipitation detector and a shipboard observer's log. The disdrometer data is further point-to-area collocated against precipitation from the satellite based Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and fluxes from Satellite data (HOAPS) climatology. HOAPS precipitation turns out to be overall consistent with the disdrometer data resulting in a detection accuracy of 0.96. The collocated data comprises light precipitation events below 1 mm h–1. Therefore two LOFZY case studies with high precipitation rates are presented that indicate plausible HOAPS satellite precipitation rates. Overall, this encourages longer term measurements of ship-to-satellite collocated precipitation in the near future.