Microwave radiometer observations of integrated atmospheric water vapor and cloud liquid water at ARM's NSA site using new Absorption Models

Recent studies of dual-channel microwave radiometric retrievals of precipitable water vapor and integrated cloud liquid water during SHEBA indicate changes may be needed in the processing of similar data at ARM's North Slope of Alaska (NSA) site in Barrow, AK. The SHEBA microwave radiometer (MWR) was operated and processed in a manner similar to that employed at NSA. Results from SHEBA indicate this may cause an overestimate in both precipitable water vapor and cloud liquid water. The implications are significant for remote sensor derived cloud microphysics and for cloud and atmospheric modeling studies. The MWR data from the last several years at NSA have been reprocessed according to the recommendations from the SHEBA study which included instrument calibration issues and changes in the atmospheric and liquid absorption models. Results are presented which compare and contrast the MWR measurements before and after these changes to the data processing.