Scattering of millimeter waves by snow crystals and equivalent homogeneous symmetric particles

The digitized Green's function code was used to compute differential and total cross sections of several model snow crystals and of several homogeneous highly symmetric equivalent particles of the same general shape and size as the snow crystals at a wavelength of 10 mm. Optical constants of equivalent particles were derived using the Biot-Arago, Lorentz-Lorenz, and Bruggemann mixing rules. Reasonable agreement was found for equivalent particles whose mass distributions were most similar to those of the snow crystals. Overall, the Bruggemann mixing rule produced the best match.