Advanced Microwave Radiometer for Rain Identification (ADMIRARI II)

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Ulrich Löhnert; Professor Dr. Clemens Simmer
• Subject Area: Atmospheric Science
• Term: from 2011 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 184729838

The Advanced Microwave Radiometer for Rain Identification (ADMIRARI) was built and taken into operation in 2007. Since then ADMIRARI has taken part in several measurement campaigns and demonstrated its ability to deliver unprecedented continuous estimates of the path-integrated water vapor content, cloud liquid water content, and rain water under all-weather conditions. We propose to exploit the unique potential of this instrument in order to significantly reduce current uncertainties concerning the following questions:1 Which microphysical cloud properties characterize warm rain events, and what are the typical time-scales of the related cloud-to-rain conversion processes?2 What is the typical range of microphysical properties of ice- and mixed-phase precipitating clouds, and how do they vary with region and season?3 How well do cloud resolving weather forecast models represent the observed microphysical properties?In order to approach questions 2 and 3 with ADMIRARI is the following question must be solved:4 What are the microwave radiative properties of the melting layer, and how can we accommodate these in models for active and passive microwave radiative transfer in a physically consistent way?In order to optimally exploit the unique capability of ADMIRARI, we propose to join several field validation experiments of the Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM). The active microwave instruments deployed side-by-side with ADMIRARI will supply information on the spatial structure of precipitation systems. An additional dual-polarization high-frequency microwave radiometer will improve the quantitative estimate especially of microphysical properties of liquid and frozen hydrometeors.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Alessandro Battaglia