Liquid Water Distribution Obtained from Coplanar Scanning Radiometers

Abstract

Field trials have been carried out in the Boulder, Colorado area of a method of determination of cloud liquid-water distribution by inversion of brightness temperature data obtained from a pair of microwave radiometers spaced about 8 km apart and sunning in a coplanar mode through clouds located between them. In the absence of precipitation, the liquid water distribution in the cloud was retrieved with reasonable accuracy. In cases where precipitation was present, it had developed by the ice crystal process, and nearly all the liquid was in the form of rain below cloud base. For this condition the radiometer data was interpreted in terms of a distribution of rainfall rates.