Abstract
Abstract Spaceborne millimeter-wave radar has been identified as a possible instrument to make global measurements in ice clouds, which have an important but poorly understood role in the earth’s radiation budget. In this paper, the authors explore the potential of a dual-frequency spaceborne radar to estimate crystal size in cirrus clouds and, hence, determine ice water content and the shortwave extinction coefficient more accurately than would be possible using a single radar. Calculations show that gaseous attenuation is not a serious problem for a nadir-pointing radar measuring down to cirrus altitudes at frequencies between 35 and 215 GHz, provided the frequencies are chosen to lie in the window regions of the atmospheric absorption spectrum. This enables one to exploit the significant benefits of using frequencies too high to be operated from the ground. Radar reflectivity at 35, 79, 94, 140, and 215 GHz has been calculated from aircraft ice particle size spectra obtained during the European Cloud R...
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