Enhanced Radar Backscattering due to Oriented Ice Particles at 95GHz during StormVEx

Nonspherical atmospheric ice particles can enhance radar backscattering and attenuation above that expected from spheres of the same mass. An analysis of scanning 95-GHz radar data collected during the Storm Peak Laboratory Cloud Property Validation Experiment (StormVEx) shows that at a least a small amount of enhanced backscattering was present in most radar scans, with a median enhancement of 2.4 dB at zenith. This enhancement will cause an error (bias) in ice water content (IWC) retrievals that neglect particle orientation, with a value of 2.4 dB being roughly equivalent to a relative error in IWC of 43%. Of the radar scans examined, 25%had a zenith-enhanced backscattering exceeding 3.5 dB (equivalent to a relative error in IWC in excess of 67%) and 10% of the scans had a zenith-enhanced backscattering exceeding 6.4 dB (equivalent to a relative error in IWC in excess of 150%). Cloud particle images indicate that large enhancement typically occurred when planar crystals (e.g., plates and dendrites) were present, with the largest enhancement occurring when large planar crystals were falling out of a supercooled liquid-water layer. More modest enhancement was sometimes due to planar crystals, but it was also sometimes likely a result of horizontally oriented nonspherical irregularly shaped particles. The analysis also shows there is a strong correlation (about20.79) between the change in slant 458 depolarization ratio with radar scan elevation angle and the magnitude of the zenith-enhanced backscattering, suggesting that measurements of the slant depolarization ratio can be used to improve radar-based cloud microphysical property retrievals.