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Title: SNOW CRYSTAL SHAPE AND MICROWAVE SCATTERING

Author
item FOSTER, JAMES - NASA
item HALL, DORTHY - NASA
item CHANG, ALFRED - NASA
item Rango, Albert
item Wergin, William
item Erbe, Eric

Submitted to: International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/20/1997
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: None.

Technical Abstract: A better understanding of the physics of snow and how microwave energy interacts with snow crystals is needed to make the snow/microwave algorithms more reliable. A particle scattering model is used to assess the scattering properties of differently shaped snow crystals and to determine if spherically-shaped crystals adequately mimic the extinction and absorption of microwave energy. Whereas crystal size and correlation length are strongly related to microwave brightness temperature, it appears from the modeling results of this study that the shape of the snow crystal is of little consequence in accounting for the transfer of microwave radiation from the ground through the snowpack at 0.81 cm wavelength. Scanning electron microscope images of crystal size and shape from winter 1997 data collected in Wisconsin in Wyoming are being used for comparison with model results.