LPVEx

The Light Precipitation Evaluation Experiment (LPVEx) took place in the Gulf of Finland in September and October, 2010, and collected microphysical properties, associated remote sensing observations, and coordinated model simulations of high latitude precipitation systems to drive the evaluation and development of precipitation algorithms for current and future satellite platforms. In doing so, LPVEx sought to address the general lack of dedicated ground-validation datasets from the ongoing development of new or improved algorithms for detecting and quantifying high latitude rainfall.

Specifically, LPVEx sought to characterize the ability of CloudSat, the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR), and existing/planned passive microwave (PMW) sensors such as the GPM microwave imager (GMI) to detect light rain and evaluate their estimates of rainfall intensity in high latitude, shallow freezing level environments. 

Through the collection of additional microphysical and environmental parameters, the campaign also sought to better understand the process of light rainfall formation and augment the currently limited database of light rainfall microphysical properties that form the critical assumptions at the root of satellite retrieval algorithms.