A statistical comparison of calculated brightness temperatures with aircraft-based observations from 10 to 325 GHz

An appropriate level of detail in the microphysical parameterization of clouds and rain cells is essential to the development of realistic atmospheric forward radiative transfer models. Too much detail can inflate computation time and complexity by supporting meaningless degrees of freedom, while too little detail can result in an inadequate model. The particle phase, size distribution, aggregate density, shape, and dielectric constant govern the absorption and scattering properties of a hydrometeor-laden atmosphere. In order to evaluate hydrometeor parameterizations for wideband (10-325 GHz) RT modelling a statistical comparison was performed between brightness temperatures observed over a mature oceanic convective storm and those calculated for a similar storm using two- and five-phase hydrometeor parameterizations in a planar-stratified RT model. While general agreement is obtained, the comparisons suggest that neither the two-phase nor five-phase model is entirely satisfactory for wideband brightness temperature simulations.<>