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Development and Comparison of Cloud Particle Size Distribution Fitting and Analysis Techniques

Matt Freer University of Illinois
Greg McFarquhar University of Illinois

Category: Cloud Properties

Cloud particle size distributions (PSDs) play an important role in determining cloud radiative and bulk properties. Furthermore, evaluating cloud parameterization schemes and algorithms retrieving cloud properties from ground-based remote sensors depend on accurate observations of PSDs and their representations as analytic functions. As such, it is vital that methods exist to accurately characterize cloud PSDs as exponential or gamma distributions, with an emphasis on reproducing the original characteristics of the cloud.

In this poster, we describe several techniques to represent PSDs as gamma distributions using data from the Cloud and Aerosol Spectrometer (CAS) measuring particles with maximum dimensions between 0.35 and 50 micrometers and a Cloud Imaging Probe (CIP) sizing particles between 50 and 1550 micrometers acquired during the Tropical Warm Pool-International Cloud Experiment and using data from two-dimensional cloud and precipitation probes acquired during the 2000 Cloud Intensive Operational Period at the Southern Great Plains site. The accuracy of the various fitting methods is compared using a metric that emphasizes agreement between observed and fitted moments.

This poster will be displayed at ARM Science Team Meeting.

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