Single scattering from frozen hydrometeors at microwave frequencies

Abstract

Scattering of electromagnetic waves from homogeneous or coated spheres can be computed in a mathematically exact way using the Mie theory. Therefore, for many approaches in remote sensing, frozen hydrometeors are parameterized as ice spheres. However, many frozen hydrometeors have non-spherical overall shapes and lack a spherically symmetric internal structure. They exist in a huge variety of shapes and exhibit different mixtures of ice, water and air. Therefore it is desirable to accurately compute scattering from non-spherical particles in order to clearly understand the effect the shape of a hydrometeor has on its scattering pattern. In this study, single scattering parameters like scattering cross section, absorption cross section, and asymmetry factor were calculated for frozen hydrometeors using the Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA). The particles were modeled as hexagonal plates, columns, needles and dendrites by applying known dimensional relationships. The calculations were carried out over a wide range of centimeter and millimeter-wavelengths (1 GHz to 300 GHz), since millimeter-wave radiometers are highly sensitive to scattering by frozen hydrometeors in the atmosphere. The study results show that for size parameters < 1 (a ratio between wavelength and particle size) the scattering cross section of randomly orientated ice crystals is close to that of an equal volume ice sphere. Absorption cross section and asymmetry factor of non-spherical particles however are up to twice as high as that of equal volume ice spheres. Further the influence of the assumed model for the refractive index of ice at microwave wavelengths on the scattering parameters is investigated.