Stratiform and Convective Rain Discrimination from Microwave Radiometer Observations
A criterion based on the SSM/I observations is developed to discriminate rain into convective and stratiform types. This criterion depends on the microwave polarization properties of the flat melting snow particles that fall slowly in the stratiform clouds. Utilizing this criterion and some spatial and temporal characteristics of hydrometeors in TOGA-COARE area revealed by ship borne radars, we have developed an algorithm to retrieve convective and stratiform rain rate from SSM/I data.
Prabhakara, C.↗