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Abstract
A new ground-based multi-frequency dual polarized microwave radiometer together with a methodology to retrieve simultaneously the cloud and rain liquid water path is presented. The instrument exploits the feature to measure brigtness temperature in vertical and horizontal polarization to retrieve the rain and cloud liquid path by means of the unique polarization difference signature. A retrieval algorithm based on a Bayesian inversion method is applied to the data set in order to retrieve the slant integrated water vapor, the cloud and rain liquid water from several rain events observed by the radiometer at 30º elevation angle. Moreover a colocated micro rain radar was used in order to have an insight into the rain structure under observation. The radar is used by the retrieval algorithm as minimum rain detection threshold as well as an independent validation of the rain component of the total liquid water path. A retrieval sensitivity on drop size distributions for case stuties is presented.