Melting layer studies at S band and comparisons with a physical model

The transition from ice to water in precipitation systems, termed the melting layer, has an important impact on communications systems, through propagation effects, on meteorological radars, through enhanced scattering (the Bright Band), and on proposed space radars. Several melting layer models have been developed, often with different aims, but comparisons with measurements have been somewhat limited. The aim of the work presented in the paper is to begin to examine the currently available models, and where possible to compare their predictions with radar data. The much more difficult task of evaluating the ability of models to estimate path integrated quantities such as attenuation and Cross-polar Discrimination (XPD) is not attempted here, although this is a key application area for any model