Snowfall over the ice-free ocean: what we can learn from the latest frontiers researches

Cloudsat  satellite overpass

The CloudSat 94 GHz radar provides the most complete snowfall climatology over polar regions, but accurate quantitative snowfall estimates derived from radar reflectivity (figure in the preview) remain challenging. The published work  explores the value of the CloudSat 94 GHz Brightness Temperature, a novel product developed from the processing of the radar noise floor level, combined with path-integrated attenuation, a standard product derived from the reduction in the radar surface return.

Results demonstrate that over ice-free ocean, where surface emissivity and backscattering are well predictable, the synergistic use of these two observables provides crucial information on the presence/amount of supercooled layers and on snow density, with potential for better constraining snowfall retrieval. 

The published paper has gained the cover of the MDPI Remote Sensing journal

Paper link:  https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/20/3285

Battaglia, A.; Panegrossi, G. What Can We Learn from the CloudSat Radiometric Mode Observations of Snowfall over the Ice-Free Ocean? Remote Sens. 202012, 3285.