Table of Contents

HALO - HAMP

Using the HALO Microwave Package (HAMP) for cloud and precipitation research in the sub-kilometer scale

 Airborne remote sensing over the tropical Atlantic. Insights into vertical cloud structure and water content from active and passive microwave observations. Figure: Airborne remote sensing over the tropical Atlantic. Insights into vertical cloud structure and water content from active and passive microwave observations. The colorful lines show all flight tracks where HAMP was used in the tropics. The dots below show an example model output of LWP that is used for retrieval development and assessment. The time series are an example of liquid (LWP) and rain water path (RWP) retrieval products and radar reflectivity profiles.

Summary

Representation of cloud and precipitation processes is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate and weather predictions. This project aims at exploring the potential of the novel HALO microwave package (HAMP) for airborne cloud and precipitation research by participating in all cloud related missions of the research aircraft HALO. HAMP is a unique combination of a 26 channel microwave radiometer and a cloud radar. To make HAMP a valuable research instrument, we will develop synergistic retrieval algorithms which convert the measured passive and active microwave signals into profiles of temperature, humidity and hydrometeor content with corresponding error estimates. A comprehensive evaluation of HAMP with existing observational systems, like e.g. satellites and ground based remote sensing super-sites will allow an assessment of its added value. In particular, we will analyze whether HAMP can resolve the fine-scale structure of cloud and precipitation fields and can thus relate point observations with area averaged data from satellites and models. Finally, observations from the NARVAL campaign will be used to demonstrate the benefit of HAMP for model development by revising the frequently used model assumption that shallow convective clouds do not precipitate.

Objectives

The Team

University of Cologne
Prof. Dr. Susanne Crewell
Marek Jacob
(Dr. Maximilian Maahn)
Dr. Mario Mech
(Dr. Emiliano Orlandi)
(Sabrina Schnitt)
University of Hamburg
Prof. Dr. Felix Ament
Dr. Heike Konow
Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology Hamburg
Dr. Lutz Hirsch
Friedhelm Jansen
Prof. Dr. Bjorn Stevens

Publications

Papers

Conference contributions

Datasets