Combined infrared emission spectra and radar reflectivity studies of cirrus clouds

Thermal-infrared emission spectra from cirrus clouds taken with a unique prism spectrograph are combined with K/sub a/-band radar reflectivity measurements to obtain mass concentration and size information on the cirrus ice crystals. A two-stream radiation transfer model utilizing Mie scattering theory was used to infer the averaged effective ice sphere diameter which, for the cirrus studied, was near 50 mu m.<
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