Brightness temperature sensitivity to variations in solid precipitation cloud profiles

In the past few years, solid precipitation detection and retrievals have been developed and shown to be applicable for snowing clouds and blizzards. All of the algorithms require the use of millimeter-wave radiometer observations. This investigation probes the sensitivity of computed brightness temperatures resulting from variations in solid precipitation cloud profiles. Variations include: (1) changing the snowfall rates from heavy to medium to low, (2) solid precipitation melting just before landfall, and (3) evaporation (virga) prior to landfall. The results show that the 89 and 150 GHz channel are primarily sensitive to low altitude changes, such as melting or evaporation near the land surface. Some of the the 183 GHz channels are sensitive to the amount of the snow and to the water vapor in the cloud profile, with the 183±1 GHz sensing only the upper portions of the cloud, while the 183±7 GHz channel probes deeper into the snow cloud.