Dual-643 GHz and 874 GHz Airborne Radiometers for Ice Cloud Measurements

In this paper, recently developed dual polarization 643 GHz and single polarization 874 GHz receivers for airborne CoSSIR, Compact Scanning Sub-millimeter wave Imaging Radiometer were utilized for ice cloud measurements. The results show that the brightness temperature map clearly demonstrates the recent advance in sub-millimeter wave radiometry for ice cloud sensing. The 874 GHz radiometer greatly improves the CoSSIR sensitivity to small ice particles. This implies that CoSSIR is able to pick up the measurements of ice clouds where the visible and inferred approaches left behind, i.e. saturated. The polarization measurement capability at 643 GHz can provide information on particle shapes, as well as improve the accuracy of the ice cloud parameters retrievals, e.g., ice water path and particle size.