Detection of Intense Ice Precipitation with GPM/DPR

Detection of ice precipitation is one of the objectives in the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. The dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR) can provide precipitation echoes at two different frequencies, which may enable differentiating solid precipitation echoes from liquid precipitation echoes. A simple algorithm that flags the pixels that contain intense ice precipitation above the height of 10 degrees C is implemented in version 5 of the DPR products. In the inner swath of DPR measurements in which both Ku- and Ka-band radar echoes are available, the measured dual-frequency ratio (DFRm) together with the measured radar reflectivity factor is used to judge the existence of intense ice precipitation. Comparisons of the flagged pixels with surface measurements show that the algorithm correctly identifies relatively intense ice precipitation regions. The global distribution of the flagged pixels indicates an interesting difference between land and ocean, in particular in the distribution of ice precipitation that reaches the surface. The flag is also expected to be useful for improving precipitation retrieval algorithms by microwave radiometers.