ADGEO Advances in Geosciences ADGEO Adv. Geosci. 1680-7359 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/adgeo-7-193-2006 Evaluation of radiative transfer schemes for mesoscale model data assimilation: a case study Memmo A. 1 Faccani C 1 Ferretti R. 1 2 Di Michele S. 3 Marzano F. S. 1 4 Centro di Eccellenza CETEMPS, Università dell’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy Dipartimento di Fisica, Università dell’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy Research Department, Satellite Section, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Reading, UK Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettronica Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Rome, Italy 28 02 2006 7 193 198 Copyright: © 2006 A. Memmo et al. 2006 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ This article is available from https://adgeo.copernicus.org/articles/7/193/2006/adgeo-7-193-2006.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://adgeo.copernicus.org/articles/7/193/2006/adgeo-7-193-2006.pdf

The assimilation of Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) data into the Mesoscale Model 5 (MM5) allows for improving the weather forecast. However the results suggested an update the Radiative Transfer Equation (RTE) within the three-dimensional variational (3DVAR) algorithm which is tailored for non rainy conditions only. To this purpose, a new RTE algorithm is tested, in order to account for radiometric response in rainy regions. The new brightness temperatures (<i>T<sub>B</sub></i>) are estimated by using hydrometeor profiles from the MM5 mesoscale model, running with two different microphysical parameterizations. The goodness of the results is assessed by comparing the new <i>T<sub>B</sub></i> with those of the original RTE algorithm in the 3DVAR code and the SSM/I observed data. The results confirm a better reliability of the new RTE compared to the old one.