Characterization of orography-influenced riming and secondary ice production and their effects on precipitation rates using radar polarimetry and Doppler spectra (CORSIPP)


Project based at
University of Leipzig, Phase 2

University of Leipzig: Anton Kötsche (PhD Student), Isabelle Steinke (PostDoc), Veronika Ettrichrätz (PostDoc), Heike Kalesse-Los (PI) and Maximilian Maahn (PI)

Abstract

Getting a better understanding on precipitation formation in mountains ain’t easy and requires new observational techniques combined with state-of-the-art retrievals and modelling. The project CORSIPP aims to under riming and secondary ice production (SIP) processes in complex terrain. For that purpose, a scanning W-band cloud radar and a novel video in situ snowfall sensor gathered extensive data for the entire winter season 2022-2023 in the Colorado Rocky Mountains as part of the SAIL campaign (Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory: https://sail.lbl.gov). An overview of the project is given in the Multimedia PageFlow created by the communication department of Leipzig University (https://unileipzig.pageflow.io/dem-schnee-auf-der-spur).
Combining spectral polarimetric and multi frequency Doppler radar observations with empirical machine learning retrieval techniques, we identied riming and SIP events and quantied their impact on snowfall rates. Using the extensive collocated measurements of SAIL allowed us to relate the observed process rates to environmental conditions, also enabling improved representations of radiative transfer in climate models.

Figure 1: Google Earth view of the main SAIL experiment site in the Rocky Mountains. Location of W-band LIMRAD94 and the ARM-AMF2 site with the KAZR as well as the VISSS are shown.