How Does Ground Clutter Affect CloudSat Snowfall Retrievals Over Ice Sheets?

CloudSat has provided the first spaceborne snowfall observations in polar regions. Nevertheless, CloudSat retrievals may be affected by ground clutter even if the snowfall rate at the surface is estimated from the reflectivity measured at about 1200 m above land/ice surface. In this study, the impac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE geoscience and remote sensing letters 2019-03, Vol.16 (3), p.342-346
Main Authors: Palerme, Cyril, Claud, Chantal, Wood, Norman B., L'Ecuyer, Tristan, Genthon, Christophe
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antarctica
Climatology
Clouds
CloudSat
Clutter
Contamination
Earth Sciences
Fjords
Glaciation
ground clutter
Ice
Ice sheets
Land ice
Meteorology
Ocean, Atmosphere
Polar environments
Polar regions
Reflectance
Sciences of the Universe
Snow
Snowfall
Soil contamination
Surface contamination
Surface topography
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Summary:CloudSat has provided the first spaceborne snowfall observations in polar regions. Nevertheless, CloudSat retrievals may be affected by ground clutter even if the snowfall rate at the surface is estimated from the reflectivity measured at about 1200 m above land/ice surface. In this study, the impact of ground clutter contamination on CloudSat snowfall retrievals over the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets is investigated. Our results suggest that ground clutter affects CloudSat snowfall observations over some areas, particularly over complex terrain such as mountain ranges and fjords. Over these areas, the snowfall rates deduced from CloudSat observations can be, therefore, significantly overestimated. This has implications when developing snowfall climatologies from CloudSat products.
ISSN:1545-598X
1558-0571
DOI:10.1109/LGRS.2018.2875007