Assessing Synergistic Radar and Radiometer Retrievals of Ice Cloud Microphysics for the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) Architecture

After exploring numerous observing system designs, the NASA aerosols, clouds, convection, and precipitation (ACCP) study team arrived at the top candidate architecture referred to as the atmosphere observing system (AOS) that is composed of a suite of spaceborne instruments in two orbital inclinations to characterize the complexity of hydrometeors and aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere. This study proposes hybrid Bayesian retrieval algorithms that combine the Monte Carlo integration (MCI) and cost function optimization approaches to quantitatively evaluate the AOS architecture for skill in constraining the ice cloud microphysical properties. The remote sensor candidates under evaluation include multiple-frequency radars with W-, Ka-, and Ku-band channels and a submillimeter-wave radiometer. Two optimization techniques, the optimal estimation method (OEM) and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), are developed to maximize the posterior distribution function to retrieve ice cloud microphysical quantities with uncertainty estimates. Observing system simulation experiments are conducted using simulated synergistic radar and radiometer observations to determine the pixel-level retrieval accuracies by comparing the retrieved parameters to the true values. Results demonstrate that the low-frequency Ka-/Ku-band radar observations are complementary to the W-band channel since they provide more constraints on the condensed cloud scenes that are composed of large particles. The brightness temperature measurements exhibit sensitivities to the ice cloud layers with large water content (WC), and the synergistic active and passive observations improve the ice water path retrieval accuracies significantly. The scores measuring how well the AOS architecture satisfies the desired retrieval uncertainties for different ice cloud geophysical variables are also derived.