Abstract/Kostinski The objective of this research is to examine time-series simulations and measurements of hydrometeor backscatter polarization matrices in order to investigate their potential meteorological applications. Previous results show that a deeper understanding of the microphysics is possible by interpreting the polarization scattering matrix as an operator rather than a list of polarimetric variables derived from the associated covariance matrix. In particular, it is now known that the time-series of the polarization matrix eigenvalues and eigenvectors can be used to define meteorologically useful variables related to the shape and canting of the hydrometeors. Our goal then is to further extend this research in order to achieve the clearest possible separation of size, shape, and orientation information. Such knowledge may well have implications with respect to the application of polarization techniques to several practical problems including, for example, the discrimination among hydrometeor types (e.g., rain vs. hail), improved characterization of raindrops for better rainfall estimation.
