| The accuracy of cloud and precipitation retrievals for a large number of instruments flying on board of satellites and aircrafts relies on the ability of cloud resolving models to provide not just the observed surface rainfall, but a consistent three-dimensional microphysics structure of the precipitating cloud. In cloud models, this information results from assumptions and parameterizations in key microphysical processes, which are often not supported by the observations.; In spite of the large availability of cloud and precipitation remote sensed observations, little has been done to validate and improve microphysics schemes in advanced numerical models. Microwave radiation has the ability to penetrate the clouds and offer insights into the precipitation microphysics and into the structure of the storm. The goal of this research is to demonstrate that passive microwave remote sensing is a unique source of valuable information for cloud microphysics model validation. It can be used to assess and enhance the ability of a cloud resolving models to reproduce precipitation structures consistent with in-situ microphysics observations.; The strategy consists mainly of the comparison between passive microwave measurements and cloud radiation simulations, where the microphysical output of cloud resolving model simulations is coupled to a radiative transfer model to compute upwelling multichannel brightness temperatures. The analysis of the passive microwave observations, sensitivity studies on the microphysics parameterization, and the comparisons between the measured and simulated multichannel upwelling brightness temperatures lead to new insights into microphysics model behavior and suggests ways to change the microphysics in the cloud resolving model. As a final verification, the available in situ-microphysics measurements are used to validate the consistency of the changes in the microphysics scheme and of the results obtained from the cloud radiation simulations. The strategy is applied to explicit cloud-resolving simulation of Hurricane Bonnie carried out with the University of Wisconsin-Nonhydrostatic Modeling System and the passive microwave observations available from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission overpasses. |
