09:00 - 10:20
Room: Conference room
Oral presentations
Probability density distributions of PMCs
Uwe Berger, Gerd Baumgarten, Jens Fiedler, Franz-Josef Luebken
Leibniz-Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Rostock University, Kuelungsborn, Germany

In this paper we present a new description about statistical probability density distributions (pdfs) of Polar Mesopheric Clouds (PMC) and noctilucent clouds (NLC) occurrence frequencies. The analysis bases on observations of maximum backscatter ratios measured by the ALOMAR RMR-lidar for aNLC seasons from 1997 to 2013. From these lidar data record we estimate an additional observational quantity of ice water density. For these two data sets we derive new classes of pdfs that describe the statistics of PMC/NLC events different from previously statistical methods using the approach of an exponential distribution commonly named g-distribution. The new theory is very successful in describing the probability statistic of ALOMAR lidar data. It turns out that the former g-function statistic is embedded in our new theory as a special case. In general the new theory allows to derive basic parameters of climatological ice particle distributions, namely mean ice radii and variances, and, secondly, the theory can be generally applied to many kinds of different observational data sets, e.g. measurements of albedo, ice water content, and ice water densities by satellite instruments, or backscatter signals by lidars, respectively.


Reference:
LongTerm-O-04
Session:
Trend
Presenter/s:
Uwe Berger
Topic:
1) Mesospheric clouds and related sciences, including noctilucent clouds (NLCs), polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), and polar mesospheric summer echoes (PMSEs).
Presentation type:
Oral communication 20 min
Room:
Conference room
Chair/s:
Matthew DeLand
Date:
Thursday, 21 September
Time:
10:00 - 10:20