CloudSat and QuickBeam Overview

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CloudSat and QuickBeam Overview

• Andrew Molthan
• SPoRT Meeting 2/28/07

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CloudSat

• 94 GHz nadir-looking Cloud Profiling Radar
• Member of the A-Train satellite constellation,
  taking observations of clouds in tandem with
  other remote sensing instruments.
• Processed data includes cloud masks, coincident
  ECMWF fields and more.

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CloudSat and the A-Train
NASA/JPL
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CloudSat Observations
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Objective

• Use CloudSat observations of clouds and cloud
  systems to investigate their model
  representations.
• Apply a CloudSat radar simulator (QuickBeam) to
  WRF WSM6 cloud microphysics outputs to begin
  comparisons.

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First Attempt
2004/07/31
Simulated CloudSat Track
Extract profiles of NWP output by extracting
columns from WRF output at the grid point nearest
each CloudSat profile location.
WRF 2 km Domain
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WRF Single Profile Microphysics
pristine ice
cloud water
snow
rain
graupel
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QuickBeam ResultsSingle WRF Profile
Single Profile Result
Fairly uniform dBZ return, slight increase with
overlapping species.
Bright band. Increase dBZ as species changes.
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WRF Microphysics Cross Section
cloud water
rain water
qc
qr
graupel
cloud ice
qi
qg
pristine ice?
snow
qi-qs-qg
qs
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Preliminary Results
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Issues

• Locate documentation describing observations of
  cloud particle size distributions.
• Obtain case studies with colocated WRF model data
  and CloudSat observations
• Working to obtaining data for 3/1-3/3/07
• Examine QuickBeam results for varying
  microphysics schemes.

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Questions?