Determination of liquid water altitudes using combined remote sensors

Abstract

Methods by which altitude ranges of supercooled liquid water in the atmosphere may be estimated are explored using measurements from a combination of ground-based remote sensors. The tests were conducted as part of the Winter Icing and Storms Project that took place in eastern Colorado during the winters of 1990, 1991, and 1993. The basic method augments microwave radiometer measurements of path-integrated liquid water with observations from additional remote sensors to establish height limits for the supercooled liquid. Comparisons of liquid vertical profiles are presented, using normalized profile shapes based on uniform, adiabatic, and aircraft-derived composite assumptions. The adiabatic and climatological profile shapes generally agreed well with measurements from a research aircraft and were more realistic than the uniform profile. -from Authors