Abstract

This paper proposes a methodology known as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Triple-Sensor Three-Step Evaluation Framework (T3EF) for the systematic evaluation of precipitating cloud types and microphysics in a cloud-resolving model (CRM). T3EF utilizes multisensor satellite simulators and novel statistics of multisensor radiance and backscattering signals observed from the TRMM satellite. Specifically, T3EF compares CRM and satellite observations in the form of combined probability distributions of precipitation radar (PR) reflectivity, polarization-corrected microwave brightness temperature (T_b ), and infrared T_b to evaluate the candidate CRM.

T3EF is used to evaluate the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble (GCE) model for cases involving the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX) and the Kwajalein Experiment (KWAJEX). This evaluation reveals that the GCE properly captures the satellite-measured frequencies of different precipitating cloud types in the SCSMEX case but overestimates the frequencies of cumulus congestus in the KWAJEX case. Moreover, the GCE tends to simulate excessively large and abundant frozen condensates in deep precipitating clouds as inferred from the overestimated GCE-simulated radar reflectivities and microwave T_b depressions. Unveiling the detailed errors in the GCE’s performance provides the better direction for model improvements.

Abstract

A restoration of the 37, 21, 18, 10.7 and 6.6 GHz satellite imagery from the S canning M ultichannel M icrowave R adiometer (SMMR) aboard Nimbus-7 to 22.2 km resolution is attempted using a deconvolution method based upon nonlinear programming. The images are deconvolved with and without the aid of prescribed constraints, which form the processed image to abide by partial a priori knowledge of the high-resolution result. The restored microwave imagery may be utilized to examine the distribution of precipitating liquid water in maritime rain systems.

Abstract

Aircraft and ground-based radar data from the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment show that convective systems are not always vertical. Instead, many are tilted from vertical. Satellite passive microwave radiometers observe the atmosphere at an oblique angle. For example, the Special Sensor Microwave Imager on Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites and the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) on the TRMM satellite view at an incident angle of about 50°. Thus, the brightness temperature measured from one direction of tilt may be different than that viewed from the opposite direction because of the different optical path. This paper presents an investigation of passive microwave brightness temperatures upwelling from tilted convective systems.

To account for the effect of tilt, a 3D backward Monte Carlo radiative transfer model has been applied to a simple tilted cloud model and a dynamically evolving cloud model to derive the brightness temperature. The radiative transfer results indicate that brightness temperature varies when the viewing angle changes because of the different optical path. The tilt increases the displacements between the high 19-GHz brightness temperature (Tb₁₉) due to liquid emission from the lower level of cloud and the low 85-GHz brightness temperature (Tb₈₅) due to ice scattering from the upper level of cloud. As the resolution degrades, the difference of brightness temperature due to the change of viewing angle decrease dramatically. The displacement between Tb₁₉ and Tb₈₅, however, remains prominent.

The successful launch and operation of the TRMM satellite provide an opportunity to examine tilted convective systems using collocated radar and radiometer data. TMI observations of tilted systems indicate that displacement between Tb₁₉ and Tb₈₅ can be as far as 100 km. Such displacement not only poses a problem to rainfall retrieval algorithms that use only scattering information but also causes large uncertainty in rainfall retrieval from multichannel retrieval algorithms. This study suggests that combined radar and radiometer data are needed to reduce the effect of tilt and to improve surface rainfall retrieval.

Abstract

A method for the remote sensing of three-dimensional latent heating distributions in precipitating tropical weather systems from satellite passive microwave observations is presented. In this method, cloud model simulated hydrometeor/latent heating vertical profiles that have radiative characteristics consistent with a given set of multispectral microwave radiometric observations are composited to create a best estimate of the observed profile. An estimate of the areal coverage of convective precipitation within the radiometer footprint is used as an additional constraint on the contributing model profiles. This constraint leads to more definitive retrieved profiles of precipitation and latent heating in synthetic data tests.

The remote sensing method is applied to Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) observations of tropical systems that occurred during the TOGA COARE Intensive Observing Period, and to observations of Hurricane Andrew (1992). Although instantaneous estimates of rain rates are high-biased with respect to coincident radar rain estimates, precipitation patterns are reasonably correlated with radar patterns, and composite rain rate and latent heating profiles show respectable agreement with estimates from forecast models and heat and moisture budget calculations. Uncertainties in the remote sensing estimates of precipitation/latent heating may be partly attributed to the relatively low spatial resolution of the SSM/I and a lack of microwave sensitivity to tenuous anvil cloud, for which upper-tropospheric latent heating rates may be significant. Estimated latent heating distributions in Hurricane Andrew exhibit an upper-level heating maximum that strengthens as the storm undergoes a period of intensification.

Abstract

Inadequate specification of divergence and moisture in the initial conditions of numerical models results in the well-documented “spinup” problem. Observational studies indicate that latent heat release can be a key ingredient in the intensification of extratropical cyclones. As a result, the assimilation of rain rates during the early stages of a numerical simulation results in improved forecasts of the intensity and precipitation patterns associated with extratropical cyclones. It is challenging, however, particularly over data-sparse regions, to obtain complete and reliable estimates of instantaneous rain rate. Here, a technique is described in which data from a variety of sources—passive microwave sensors, infrared sensors, and lightning flash observations—along with a classic image processing technique (digital image morphing) are combined to yield a continuous time series of rain rates, which may then be assimilated into a mesoscale model. The technique is tested on simulations of the notorious 1993 Superstorm. In this case, a fortuitous confluence of several factors—rapid cyclogenesis over an oceanic region, the occurrence of this cyclogenesis at a time inconveniently placed in between Special Sensor Microwave/Imager overpasses, intense lightning during this time, and a poor forecast in the control simulation—leads to a dramatic improvement in forecasts of precipitation patterns, sea level pressure fields, and geopotential height fields when information from all of the sources is combined to determine the rain rates. Lightning data, in particular, has a greater positive impact on the forecasts than the other data sources.

Abstract

Rainfall rate estimates from spaceborne microwave radiometers are generally accepted as reliable by a majority of the atmospheric science community. One of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) facility rain-rate algorithms is based upon passive microwave observations from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). In Part I of this series, improvements of the TMI algorithm that are required to introduce latent heating as an additional algorithm product are described. Here, estimates of surface rain rate, convective proportion, and latent heating are evaluated using independent ground-based estimates and satellite products. Instantaneous, 0.5°-resolution estimates of surface rain rate over ocean from the improved TMI algorithm are well correlated with independent radar estimates (r ∼0.88 over the Tropics), but bias reduction is the most significant improvement over earlier algorithms. The bias reduction is attributed to the greater breadth of cloud-resolving model simulations that support the improved algorithm and the more consistent and specific convective/stratiform rain separation method utilized. The bias of monthly 2.5°-resolution estimates is similarly reduced, with comparable correlations to radar estimates. Although the amount of independent latent heating data is limited, TMI-estimated latent heating profiles compare favorably with instantaneous estimates based upon dual-Doppler radar observations, and time series of surface rain-rate and heating profiles are generally consistent with those derived from rawinsonde analyses. Still, some biases in profile shape are evident, and these may be resolved with (a) additional contextual information brought to the estimation problem and/or (b) physically consistent and representative databases supporting the algorithm. A model of the random error in instantaneous 0.5°-resolution rain-rate estimates appears to be consistent with the levels of error determined from TMI comparisons with collocated radar. Error model modifications for nonraining situations will be required, however. Sampling error represents only a portion of the total error in monthly 2.5°-resolution TMI estimates; the remaining error is attributed to random and systematic algorithm errors arising from the physical inconsistency and/or nonrepresentativeness of cloud-resolving-model-simulated profiles that support the algorithm.

Abstract

In this study, a 1D steady-state microphysical model that describes the vertical distribution of melting precipitation particles is developed. The model is driven by the ice-phase precipitation distributions just above the freezing level at applicable grid points of “parent” 3D cloud-resolving model (CRM) simulations. It extends these simulations by providing the number density and meltwater fraction of each particle in finely separated size categories through the melting layer. The depth of the modeled melting layer is primarily determined by the initial material density of the ice-phase precipitation. The radiative properties of melting precipitation at microwave frequencies are calculated based upon different methods for describing the dielectric properties of mixed-phase particles. Particle absorption and scattering efficiencies at the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Imager frequencies (10.65–85.5 GHz) are enhanced greatly for relatively small (∼0.1) meltwater fractions. The relatively large number of partially melted particles just below the freezing level in stratiform regions leads to significant microwave absorption, well exceeding the absorption by rain at the base of the melting layer. Calculated precipitation backscatter efficiencies at the precipitation radar frequency (13.8 GHz) increase with particle meltwater fraction, leading to a “bright band” of enhanced radar reflectivities in agreement with previous studies. The radiative properties of the melting layer are determined by the choice of dielectric models and the initial water contents and material densities of the “seeding” ice-phase precipitation particles. Simulated melting-layer profiles based upon snow described by the Fabry–Szyrmer core-shell dielectric model and graupel described by the Maxwell-Garnett water matrix dielectric model lead to reasonable agreement with radar-derived melting-layer optical depth distributions. Moreover, control profiles that do not contain mixed-phase precipitation particles yield optical depths that are systematically lower than those observed. Therefore, the use of the melting-layer model to extend 3D CRM simulations is likely justified, at least until more-realistic spectral methods for describing melting precipitation in high-resolution, 3D CRMs are implemented.

Abstract

Four Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) datasets of latent heating were diagnosed for signals in the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). In all four datasets, vertical structures of latent heating are dominated by two components—one deep with its peak above the melting level and one shallow with its peak below. Profiles of the two components are nearly ubiquitous in longitude, allowing a separation of the vertical and zonal/temporal variations when the latitudinal dependence is not considered. All four datasets exhibit robust MJO spectral signals in the deep component as eastward propagating spectral peaks centered at a period of 50 days and zonal wavenumber 1, well distinguished from lower- and higher-frequency power and much stronger than the corresponding westward power. The shallow component shows similar but slightly less robust MJO spectral peaks. MJO signals were further extracted from a combination of bandpass (30–90 day) filtered deep and shallow components. Largest amplitudes of both deep and shallow components of the MJO are confined to the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. There is a local minimum in the deep components over the Maritime Continent. The shallow components of the MJO differ substantially among the four TRMM datasets in their detailed zonal distributions in the Eastern Hemisphere. In composites of the heating evolution through the life cycle of the MJO, the shallow components lead the deep ones in some datasets and at certain longitudes. In many respects, the four TRMM datasets agree well in their deep components, but not in their shallow components and in the phase relations between the deep and shallow components. These results indicate that caution must be exercised in applications of these latent heating data.

Abstract

In this study, a nonparametric method to estimate precipitating ice from multiple-frequency radar observations is investigated. The method does not require any assumptions regarding the distribution of ice particle sizes and relies on an efficient search procedure to incorporate information from observed particle size distributions (PSDs) in the estimation process. Similar to other approaches rooted in optimal-estimation theory, the nonparametric method is robust in the presence of noise in observations and uncertainties in the forward models. Over 200 000 PSDs derived from in situ observations collected during the Olympic Mountains Experiment (OLYMPEX) and Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEX) field campaigns are used in the development and evaluation of the nonparametric estimation method. These PSDs are used to create a database of ice-related variables and associated computed radar reflectivity factors at the Ku, Ka, and W bands. The computed reflectivity factors are used to derive precipitating ice estimates and investigate the associated errors and uncertainties. The method is applied to triple-frequency radar observations collected during OLYMPEX and IPHEX. Direct comparisons of estimated ice variables with estimates from in situ instruments show results consistent with the error analysis. Global application of the method requires an extension of the supporting PSD database, which can be achieved through the processing of information from additional past and future field campaigns.

Abstract

In this paper, the operational Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission combined radar–radiometer algorithm is thoroughly described. The operational combined algorithm is designed to reduce uncertainties in GPM Core Observatory precipitation estimates by effectively integrating complementary information from the GPM Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) and the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) into an optimal, physically consistent precipitation product. Although similar in many respects to previously developed combined algorithms, the GPM combined algorithm has several unique features that are specifically designed to meet the GPM objectives of deriving, based on GPM Core Observatory information, accurate and physically consistent precipitation estimates from multiple spaceborne instruments, and ancillary environmental data from reanalyses. The algorithm features an optimal estimation framework based on a statistical formulation of the Gauss–Newton method, a parameterization for the nonuniform distribution of precipitation within the radar fields of view, a methodology to detect and account for multiple scattering in Ka-band DPR observations, and a statistical deconvolution technique that allows for an efficient sequential incorporation of radiometer information into DPR precipitation retrievals.