Clouds play a significant role in the Earth’s energy balance and; hydrological cycle through their effects on radiation and precipitation,; and therefore are crucial for life on Earth. Earth’s NexT‐generation ICE; mission (ENTICE) is proposed to measure diurnally resolved global; vertical profiles of cloud ice particle size, ice water content, and; in-cloud humidity and temperature using multi-frequency sub-millimeter; (sub-mm) microwave radiometers and a 94 GHz cloud radar from space. The; scientific objective of ENTICE is to identify the important processes by; which anvil clouds evolve and interact with ambient thermodynamic; conditions to advance our fundamental understanding of clouds and reduce; uncertainties in cloud climate feedback. Whether such an objective could; be achieved depends on the orbital sampling characteristics of the; mission. In this study, ENTICE sampling statistics are simulated using; five different scanning methods in a 400 km altitude precession orbit; with an inclination of 65°: nadir, forward pointing, side scanning, and; conical scanning for the radiometers, and nadir pointing for the radar.; Using the GEOS-5 Nature Run produced at 7-km and 30-min resolution,; sampling statistics with respect to cloud types and local hours with; enhancement from radar are calculated for ENTICE. The wide swath of; ENTICE radiometers by conical and side scanning methods ensures ample; high cloud samples gathered by ENTICE over its two-year mission for; different types of clouds with sufficient sampling over the diurnal; cycles. Sampling differences between radar and radiometers at nadir; demonstrate that the combination of radar and radiometers will allow for; measurements of cloud vertical profiles. Therefore, our results show; that the designed orbit sampling of ENTICE is sufficient to fulfill the; mission science goals.
