Project of
University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig: Anton Kötsche (PhD Student), 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 will gather extensive data for the entire winter season 2022-2023 in the Colorado Rocky Mountains as part of the SAIL campaign (https://sail.lbl.gov).
Combining spectral polarimetric and multi frequency Doppler radar observations with empirical machine learning retrieval techniques, we will identify riming and SIP events and quantify their
impact on snowfall rates. Using the extensive collocated measurements of SAIL will allow 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.