Global Snowfall Measurement with the CloudSat Space-borne Radar

Data from the first year of the CloudSat mission will be used to investigate global snowfall patterns by converting near-surface radar reflectivities from CloudSat's space-borne radar into snowfall rates. The sensitivity of these results to the various approximations necessary to derive snowfall rates, such as assumptions about snowflake shape, will be tested, as well as the possibility of incorporating additional quality controls steps to account for high non-precipitation reflectivities in regions of complex terrain. In addition, co-located ECMWF temperature data will be utilized to differentiate between rain, snow, and mixed precipitation, with the goal of studying regional and seasonal distributions of precipitation type. Finally, the results will be compared to ground-based data sets of snowfall observations in various regions of the globe in order to validate and improve the methodology of converting CloudSat reflectivities into snowfall rates.