Reconciling Independent Experimental Determinations of PMC Particle Size from Satellite and Ground Based Data

Details Reconciling Independent Experimental Determinations of PMC Particle Size from Satellite and Ground Based Data Reconciling Independent Experimental Determinations of PMC Particle Size from Satellite and Ground Based Data

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsa21a0241r&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SA21A-0241

Physics

7899 General Or Miscellaneous

Scientific paper

Significant discrepancies exist between inferred Polar Mesospheric Ice Clouds (PMC) particle sizes resulting from the interpretation of data from different measurement techniques. The experimental techniques can be divided into two types: Angular measurements that rely on the variation in the scattering efficiency as a function of scattering angle; and wavelength dependent measurements that rely on the change in scattering efficiency vs. wavelength. The angular (phase function) dependent measurements generally produce smaller particle sizes than the wavelength dependent derivations. Two major complications in the comparison are (1) the unknown particle size distribution, and (2) the unknown particle shape. Reconciling the measurements puts useful constraints on these assumptions. For example, the traditional, but unphysical, assumption of a spherical particle shape, with the sizes distributed log-normally, was shown by recent analysis of ground- based lidar, and SME and SNOE satellite measurements of seasonal and latitudinal particle size, to be incapable of satisfying the suite of measurements. The observations tend toward reconciliation under the assumptions of a non-spherical particle shape and a size distribution represented by a Gaussian. The results are consistent with particle shapes that approximate needles (or plates) with 6 or 7 to 1 aspect ratios, mean particle sizes in the 20 to 60 nm range, and Gaussian distribution widths of 10 to 20 nm. Large particle sizes of 100 nm (the radii of an equivalent-mass sphere) or more may occur, but less than 1% of the time.

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