Estimating ice content and extinction in precipitating cloud systems from CloudSat radar measurements

These relations are specifically tuned for CloudSat radar to derive ice content and optical thickness of ice parts of precipitating systems where other types of measurements have limitations. Accounting for nonsphericity is essential for larger particles, which produce higher reflectivities (Z e > 0 dBZ) and often dominate ice content of precipitating clouds.

Typical values of median sizes in such clouds are about 1 - 2 mm, and they vary modestly. The modest particle size variability and strong non-Rayleigh scattering reduce data scatter in the derived relations and increase an exponent in best fit power law approximations for ice water content-reflectivity and extinction-reflectivity relations. The data scatter for high-reflectivity clouds is smaller than for low-reflectivity nonprecipitating clouds.