PHIPS-HALO: the airborne Particle Habit Imaging and Polar Scattering probe – Part 3: Single-particle phase discrimination and particle size distribution based on the angular-scattering function

Abstract

A major challenge for in situ observations in mixed-phase clouds remains the phase discrimination and sizing of cloud hydrometeors. In this work, we present a new method for determining the phase of individual cloud hydrometeors based on their angular-light-scattering behavior employed by the PHIPS (Particle Habit Imaging and Polar Scattering) airborne cloud probe. The phase discrimination algorithm is based on the difference of distinct features in the angular-scattering function of spherical and aspherical particles. The algorithm is calibrated and evaluated using a large data set gathered during two in situ aircraft campaigns in the Arctic and Southern Ocean. Comparison of the algorithm with manually classified particles showed that we can confidently discriminate between spherical and aspherical particles with a 98 % accuracy. Furthermore, we present a method for deriving particle size distributions based on single-particle angular-scattering data for particles in a size range from 100 µm ≤ D ≤ 700 µm and 20 µm ≤ D ≤ 700 µm for droplets and ice particles, respectively. The functionality of these methods is demonstrated in three representative case studies.