This study aims to quantify microphysical properties of cirrus clouds utilizing coincident lidar and polarimeter aircraft data collected during the Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling (SEAC4RS), Aerosol Characterization from Polarimeter and Lidar (ACEPOL), and Polarimeter Definition Experiment (PODEX) campaigns. TheCloud Physics Lidar (CPL) flown onboard NASA’s ER-2 aircraft uses backscatter and depolarization products at multiple wavelengths to classify clouds and aerosols with high temporal and spatial resolution. Additionally, airborne polarimeters such as the Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) enable the retrieval of cirrus microphysical properties by measuring the radiance and state of polarization of light. Using coincident observations from lidar and polarimeter, the relationships between depolarization ratio, effective radius and environmental parameters such as temperature and relative humidity are studied and are further inter-compared with radiative transfer model-based analyses.
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