Tropical Ice Water Amount and Its Relations to Other Atmospheric Hydrological Parameters as Inferred from Satellite Data

Abstract

Abstract An over-ocean ice water path (IWP) algorithm, using satellite Special Sensor Microwave Water Vapor Sounder (SSM/T-2) data, is presented for clouds during the Tropical Oceans Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment. In developing the retrieval algorithm, clouds are first divided into 10 classes based on their top temperatures and microwave radiative properties. Radiative transfer model simulations are then performed for the different classes to establish a relation between IWP and the depression of 150-GHz brightness temperature. Correction to the effect of supercooled liquid water is done by incorporating data of liquid water path (LWP) retrievals from Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) and relative humidity profiles from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts analyses. The algorithm retrievals are compared with the analyses in the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) dataset. By using collocated SSM/T-2, SSM/I, and ISCCP data, the ...