Microphysical and macrophysical properties of convective precipitation and techniques for detection using the GPM Core Satellite

Convective precipitation systems have a major impact on the Earth’s precipitation and radiation budgets, as well as the heat and moisture transport and atmospheric general circulation. These precipitation systems can range from relatively small, 25 km2 -100 km2, or even smaller, to large systems that have an area greater than 1,000 km2, with many systems reaching areas of greater than 100,000 km2. Understanding their properties, such as total precipitation, latent heat release, vertical structure, rain drop size distribution, and composition, at a cloud and sub-cloud scale, as well as any changes in these properties throughout the life of the system, is vital to quantifying their impacts on the Earth system. This dissertation therefore aims to examine some of these properties and quantify them using various satellite observation techniques. To accomplish this, the following research attempts to understand the microphysical properties of rain drops by estimating the mass-weighted drop diameter of shallow isolated warm rain events using data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission’s Core Satellite’s Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) and a simplified dual frequency retrieval technique. An analysis and examination of the possible presence of sidelobe contamination presenting as shallow rain in DPR observations is also conducted, acting as an investigation into the possible sources of error in the quality control of data. The macrophysical properties of convective precipitation systems are also examined, by using half-hourly precipitation estimates from the Integrated multi satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) dataset to understand the life cycle of long-lived mesoscale convective systems throughout their lifetimes. GPM radar data collocated to these tracks are composited relative to the time of the storm’s peak lightning flash rate, allowing for analysis of the storm’s properties throughout its lifetime.