München 2019 – scientific programme

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UP: Fachverband Umweltphysik

UP 10: Poster session

UP 10.2: Poster

Thursday, March 21, 2019, 16:30–18:30, HS 22

Cloud microphysical properties from airborne camera observations of the backscatter glory — •Veronika Pörtge, Lucas Höppler, Tobias Kölling, Tobias Zinner, and Bernhard Mayer — Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Meteorologisches Institut, München, Germany

Cloud microphysical properties such as the effective radius of the droplets or the shape of their size distribution determine the effect of clouds on the global radiation budget and hence on Earth’s climate. In this study we present a remote sensing method for detecting those optical properties by using the backscatter glory which is a well-known optical phenomenon for water clouds.

The glory is caused by backscattering of sunlight by spherical droplets in clouds. This backscattering results in colorful concentric rings surrounding the observer’s shadow which can be quantitatively described by Mie theory. The angular radius of the rings is a very accurate and direct measure of the droplet size, while the “sharpness” of the image contains information about the width of the size distribution.

We analyse systematic camera observations which were taken during the NARVAL-II campaign in 2016 from the HALO aircraft by comparing them with radiative transfer simulations. Results of this method will be presented and compared to “traditional” remote sensing methods.