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Cloud Water Contents and Hydrometeor Sizes During the FIRE-Arctic Clouds Experiment |
STC / NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory,
NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory,
CIRES / NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory,
CIRA / NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory
During the year long Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Experiment (1997-1998), the NOAA/Environmental Technology Laboratory operated a 35-GHz cloud radar, and the DOE/Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program operated a suite of radiometers at an ice station frozen into the drifting pack of the Arctic Ocean. The NASA/FIRE-Arctic Clouds Experiment operated during April-July, 1998, with the primary goal of investigating cloud microphysical, geometrical and radiative properties. In this paper, a number of retrieval techniques are utilized which combine the radar and radiometer measurements to compute height- dependent water contents and hydrometeor sizes for all-ice and all-liquid clouds. For the spring and early summer period, all-ice clouds had mean particle diameters of 55 microns and ice water contents up to 0.1 g/m3. The all-liquid clouds had mean effective particle radii of 7.7 microns, and liquid water contents up to 0.6 g/m3. The all-ice or all-liquid condition was observed only about 20% of the time; at all other times, there were both ice and liquid particles in the same atmospheric column.
