Impact of Cloud Model Microphysics on Passive Microwave Retrievals of Cloud Properties. Part II: Uncertainty in Rain, Hydrometeor Structure, and Latent Heating Retrievals

The impact of model microphysics on the retrieval of cloud properties based on passive microwave observations was examined using a three-dimensional, nonhydrostatic, adaptive-grid cloud model to simulate a mesoscale convective system over ocean. Two microphysical schemes, based on similar bulk two-class liquid and three-class ice parameterizations, were used to simulate storms with differing amounts of supercooled cloud water typical of both the tropical oceanic environment, in which there is little supercooled cloud water, and midlatitude continental environments in which supercooled cloud water is more plentiful. For convective surface-level rain rates, the uncertainty varied between 20% and 60% depending on which combination of passive and active microwave observations was used in the retrieval. The uncertainty in surface rain rate did not depend on the microphysical scheme or the parameter settings except for retrievals over stratiform regions based on 85-GHz brightness temperatures TB alone or 85-GHz TB and radar reflectivity combined. In contrast, systematic differences in the treatment of the production of cloud water, cloud ice, and snow between the parameterization schemes coupled with the low correlation between those properties and the passive microwave TB examined here led to significant differences in the uncertainty in retrievals of those cloud properties and latent heating. The variability in uncertainty of hydrometeor structure and latent heating associated with the different microphysical parameterizations exceeded the inherent variability in TB–cloud property relations. This was true at the finescales of the cloud model as well as at scales consistent with satellite footprints in which the inherent variability in TB–cloud property relations are reduced by area averaging.