Combining passive infrared and microwave satellite observations to investigate cloud microphysical properties: a review

Clouds play a key role in the Earth’s radiation budget, weather, and hydrological cycle, as well as the radiative and thermodynamic components of the climate system. Spaceborne observations are an essential tool to detect clouds, study cloud–radiation interactions, and explore their microphysical properties. Recent advancements in spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions of satellite-borne measurements and the increasing variety of orbits and observing geometries offer the opportunity for more efficient and sophisticated retrieval procedures, leading to the more accurate estimation of cloud parameters. However, despite the availability of near-coincident observations of the same atmospheric state, the synergy between the whole set of acquired information is still largely underexplored. The use of synergy is often invoked to optimize the exploitation of the available information, but it is rarely implemented. Indeed, the strategy currently used in most cases is that retrievals are performed separately for each instrument and, only later, the retrieved products are combined. In this framework, therefore, there is a strong need to study and exploit the synergy potential of the instruments currently in orbit or that will be put in orbit in the next few years. This paper reviews the efforts already made in this direction, combining passive infrared and microwave to retrieve cloud microphysical properties. We provide readers with a framework to interpret the state of the art, highlighting the pros and cons of the various approaches currently used with a look to the most promising methodologies to be deployed to address the challenges of this field.