Calculations of Single-Scattering Properties of Randomly Oriented Small Atmospheric Ice Crystals to Improve Representations of Ice Clouds in Satellite Retrieval Algorithms and Numerical Models

Greg McFarquhar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Usage Details

Computationally intensive calculations of the single-scattering properties of ice crystals are required for understanding and modeling ice clouds in the climate system. Since ice crystals have a wide variety of shapes and are randomly oriented, supercomputers are used to generate the needed libraries of scattering properties. Here, we determine the minimum number of crystal orientations required to calculate the single-scattering properties of four models of realistically shaped ice crystals within predefined accuracy levels using the Amsterdam discrete-dipole approximation, as well as the efficiency of different orientation averaging schemes. This will ultimately allow us to minimize the computing resources needed to compute similar properties in future studies.