Dual polarisation weather radar studies of precipitation systems over the Southern Ocean

Clouds and precipitation over the Southern Ocean are dynamically and ecologically important, but they are not well understood, resulting in large uncertainties in current weather and climate model, hindering our capacity to predict future climate. This issue is exacerbated by the limited observations and substantial errors in satellite and reanalysis products. Australia’s National Marine Facility RV Investigator has been making dual polarimetric C-band radar observations routinely on both meteorologically focussed voyages such as the CAPRICORN experiment as well as other voyages. This presentation will describe the RV Investigator’s radar capability and then discuss some of the precipitation morphology and analysis of the precipitation microphysics in different synoptic regimes. We will also describe some of the limitations on widely used satellite and reanalysis products.