Spaceborne inferences of cloud microstructure and precipitation-forming processes with height have been used to investigate the effect of ingested aerosols on clouds and to integrate the findings with past cloud physics research. The inferences were made with a method that analyzes data from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA AVHRR) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Visible and Infrared Scanner (TRMM VIRS) sensors to determine the effective radius of cloud particles with height. In addition, the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) made it possible to measure the rainfall simultaneously with the microphysical retrievals, which were validated by aircraft cloud physics measurements under a wide range of conditions. For example, the satellite inferences suggest that vigorous convective clouds over many portions of the globe remain supercooled to near −38°C, the point of homogeneous nucleation. These inferences were then validated in Texas and Argentina by in situ measurements using a cloud physics jet aircraft.
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Rosenfeld et al. (2003) studied this question.
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