Cloud remote sensing by combining synergetic sensor information

The accurate determination of the cloud liquid water (LWC) profile from one single remote sensing instrument is not possible. We present a technique, which allows the merging of measurements from different instruments. Additionally, the method can take into account climatological (virtual) information of cloud microphysics. The method is applied to measurements from a cloud radar and a a-channel passive microwave radiometer. With the EU-project CLIWA-NET, which aims at the determination of highly accurate fields of the liquid water path (LWP) from a combination of ground-based stations and satellite measurements, more detailed input will be available for our method. Example measurements from a Pre-CLIWA-NET campaign are presented to demonstrate the potential of the upcoming CLIWA-NET campaigns, which will lead to long-term statistics of the LWC profile. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.