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Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 4143-4157, 2012
www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/4143/2012/ doi:10.5194/acp-12-4143-2012 © Author(s) 2012. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. |
Lidar and radar measurements of the melting layer: observations of dark and bright band phenomena
1Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Fisica dell'Ambiente, Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Potenza, Italy
2Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Roma, Italy
3School of Earth, Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
4Meteorologisches Institut, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
5Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Abstract. Multi-wavelength lidar measurements in the melting layer revealing the presence of dark and bright bands have been performed by the University of BASILicata Raman lidar system (BASIL) during a stratiform rain event. Simultaneously radar measurements have been also performed from the same site by the University of Hamburg cloud radar MIRA 36 (35.5 GHz), the University of Hamburg dual-polarization micro rain radar (24.15 GHz) and the University of Manchester UHF wind profiler (1.29 GHz). Measurements from BASIL and the radars are illustrated and discussed in this paper for a specific case study on 23 July 2007 during the Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study (COPS). Simulations of the lidar dark and bright band based on the application of concentric/eccentric sphere Lorentz-Mie codes and a melting layer model are also provided. Lidar and radar measurements and model results are also compared with measurements from a disdrometer on ground and a two-dimensional cloud (2DC) probe on-board the ATR42 SAFIRE. Measurements and model results are found to confirm and support the conceptual microphysical/scattering model elaborated by Sassen et al. (2005).
Citation: Di Girolamo, P., Summa, D., Cacciani, M., Norton, E. G., Peters, G., and Dufournet, Y.: Lidar and radar measurements of the melting layer: observations of dark and bright band phenomena, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 4143-4157, doi:10.5194/acp-12-4143-2012, 2012.