A training program that has been conducted since 1974 to educate pilots in the principles of weather modification is described. The program offers theoretical and practical instruction in cloud seeding, including on-the-job experience. Some benefits of the program are presented.

Abstract

A computer simulation has been developed to optimize the use of the aircraft platform for the measurement of shortwave irradiances. This model simulates the measurement of radiative fluxes in order to determine the approximate sample sizes required under various conditions of cloudiness.

The simulated required sampling length or averaging distance was found to be inversely proportional to the height of the sensor above or below the cloud field. The magnitude of the averaging distance and the rate of its decrease with height are the result of signal variations on two scales. Near the cloud surface the data have a high variance due to small-scale, large-amplitude variations in the irradiance. These fluctuations are rapidly smoothed as the aircraft-cloud separation increases. The longer period oscillations are not as easily smoothed. When the aircraft is farther from the cloud, large-scale effects become the primary control on the averaging distance.

Abstract

Tropical thunderstorms produce large amounts of cirrus anvil clouds, which have a large effect on the climate system. Modeling of the cirrus anvil is a very important factor in the driving processes in atmospheric, climate, and radiation budget models. The current research project is focused on determining the relationships between the thunderstorm intensity and cirrus anvil characteristics of storms during the Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers–Florida Area Cirrus Experiment (CRYSTAL-FACE). During July 2002, 19 different storms were selected for analysis. A vertical profile of reflectivity was extracted for each cell in which the maximum reflectivity, and maximum 10- and 40-dBZ height were identified. A majority of the thunderstorms in this study were single cells or isolated multicell clusters initiated from outflow boundaries or sea-breeze interactions. The results show that a general thunderstorm life cycle characteristic time sequence was determined, finding that the maximum reflectivity occurred on average 10 min after the cell first appeared in the base scan reflectivity image. The anvil origin and maximum height were found to occur approximately 10 and 25 min after maximum reflectivity, respectively. The anvil’s mean particle size was found to increase with time and decrease with altitude. The opposite relationship holds true for the particle concentration. Contour analysis has shown that the particle size increased with increased thunderstorm intensity and time after maximum reflectivity. An increase in convective core intensity corresponds to increased anvil particle concentrations early after maximum reflectivity, as was observed.

Abstract

The detailed microphysical processes and properties within the melting layer (ML)—the continued growth of the aggregates by the collection of the small particles, the breakup of these aggregates, the effects of relative humidity on particle melting—are largely unresolved. This study focuses on addressing these questions for in-cloud heights from just above to just below the ML. Observations from four field programs employing in situ measurements from above to below the ML are used to characterize the microphysics through this region. With increasing temperatures from about −4° to +1°C, and for saturated conditions, slope and intercept parameters of exponential fits to the particle size distributions (PSD) fitted to the data continue to decrease downward, the maximum particle size (largest particle sampled for each 5-s PSD) increases, and melting proceeds from the smallest to the largest particles. With increasing temperature from about −4° to +2°C for highly subsaturated conditions, the PSD slope and intercept continue to decrease downward, the maximum particle size increases, and there is relatively little melting, but all particles experience sublimation.

Abstract

In this study, aircraft data are used to derive effective ice particle densities. This density is defined as the ice particle mass divided by the volume of an equivalent diameter sphere. Measured ice particle size distributions and total ice water contents are used to derive effective ice densities for ice particle populations ( ρ _e ) as a function of particle size [ρ _e (D)]. The density values are critical for modeling and remote sensing applications.

The method uses particle size distributions (PSDs) measured by several particle spectrometers to compute the total particle volume per unit volume of air, assuming that the particles are spheres. Simultaneous direct measurements of ice water content from a counterflow virtual impactor (CVI) yield values for the number of grams of ice per unit volume of air, enabling the overall effective ice density for a population to be calculated. The measured PSD together with the CVI measurements are used to derive mass–dimension relationships.

The methods are applied to measurements acquired in two field programs. More than 1200 population densities were derived from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program and more than 5500 for the Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers (CRYSTAL) Florida Area Cirrus Experiment (FACE) in southern Florida during July 2002. The population densities are represented in terms of two properties of particle size distributions: the spectral slope and the median mass diameter. The datasets have been divided into populations associated with predominantly synoptically generated ice cloud regions, convectively generated ice cloud regions, regions with moderately to heavily rimed and graupel particles, and those within the melting layer. Average particle density relationships are derived for each regime.

Values of ρ _e are generally higher in synoptically than convectively generated cloud layers, and rimed particles are denser than unrimed ones. Values of ρ _e also decrease systematically downward within the ice clouds except in the melting layer, where they increase downward.

Abstract

A continental stratus cloud layer was studied by advanced ground-based remote sensing instruments and aircraft probes on 30 April 1994 from the Cloud and Radiation Testbed site in north-central Oklahoma. The boundary layer structure clearly resembled that of a cloud-topped mixed layer, and the cloud content is shown to be near adiabatic up to the cloud-top entrainment zone. A cloud retrieval algorithm using the radar reflectivity and cloud droplet concentration (either measured in situ or deduced using dual-channel microwave radiometer data) is applied to construct uniquely high-resolution cross sections of liquid water content and mean droplet radius. The combined evidence indicates that the 350–600 m deep, slightly supercooled (2.0° to −2.0°C) cloud, which failed to produce any detectable ice or drizzle particles, contained an average droplet concentration of 347 cm⁻³, and a maximum liquid water content of 0.8 g m⁻³ and mean droplet radius of 9 μm near cloud top. Lidar data indicate that the K_a-band radar usually detected the cloud-base height to within ∼50 m, such that the radar insensitivity to small cloud droplets had a small impact on the findings. Radar-derived liquid water paths ranged from 71 to 259 g m⁻² as the stratus deck varied, which is in excellent agreement with dual-channel microwave radiometer data, but ∼20% higher than that measured in situ. This difference appears to be due to the undersampling of the few largest cloud droplets by the aircraft probes. This combination of approaches yields a unique image of the content of a continental stratus cloud, as well as illustrating the utility of modern remote sensing systems for probing nonprecipitating water clouds.

Abstract

A new approach is described for calculating the mass (m) and terminal velocity (V _t ) of ice particles from airborne and balloon-borne imaging probe data as well as its applications for remote sensing and modeling studies. Unlike past studies that derived these parameters from the maximum (projected) dimension (D) and habit alone, the “two-parameter approach” uses D and the particle's projected cross-sectional area (A). Expressions were developed that relate the area ratio (A _r ; the projected area of an ice particle normalized by the area of a circle with diameter D) to its effective density (ρ _e ) and to V _t .

Habit-dependent, power-law relationships between ρ _e and A _r were developed using analytic representations of the geometry of various types of planar and spatial ice crystals. Relationships were also derived from new or reanalyzed data for single ice particles and aggregates observed in clouds and at the ground.

The mass relationships were evaluated by comparing calculations to direct measurements of ice water content (IWC). The calculations were from Particle Measuring Systems (PMS) 2D-C and 2D-P probes of particle size distributions in ice cloud layers on 3 days during an Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) field campaign in Oklahoma; the direct measurements were from counterflow virtual impactor (CVI) observations in ice cloud layers during the field campaign. Agreement was generally to within 20%, whereas using previous mass–dimension relationship approaches usually produced larger differences. Comparison of ground-based measurements of radar reflectivity with calculations from collocated balloon-borne ice crystal measurements also showed that the new method accurately captured the vertical reflectivity structure. Improvements in the accuracy of the estimates from the earlier mass–dimension relationships were achieved by converting them to the new form. A new, more accurate mass–dimension relationship for spatial, cirrus-type crystals was deduced from the comparison.

The relationship between V _t and A _r was derived from a combination of theory and observations. A new expression accounting for the drag coefficients of large aggregates was developed from observational data. Explicit relationships for calculating V _t as a function of D for aggregates with a variety of component crystals were developed.

Abstract

Hurricane Nora traveled up the Baja Peninsula coast in the unusually warm El Niño waters of September 1997 until rapidly decaying as it approached southern California on 24 September. The anvil cirrus blowoff from the final surge of tropical convection became embedded in subtropical flow that advected the cirrus across the western United States, where it was studied from the Facility for Atmospheric Remote Sensing (FARS) in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 25 September. A day later, the cirrus shield remnants were redirected southward by midlatitude circulations into the southern Great Plains, providing a case study opportunity for the research aircraft and ground-based remote sensors assembled at the Clouds and Radiation Testbed (CART) site in northern Oklahoma. Using these comprehensive resources and new remote sensing cloud retrieval algorithms, the microphysical and radiative cloud properties of this unusual cirrus event are uniquely characterized.

Importantly, at both the FARS and CART sites the cirrus generated spectacular halos and arcs, which acted as a tracer for the hurricane cirrus, despite the limited lifetimes of individual ice crystals. Lidar depolarization data indicate widespread regions of uniform ice plate orientations, and in situ particle replicator data show a preponderance of pristine, solid hexagonal plates and columns. It is suggested that these unusual aspects are the result of the mode of cirrus particle nucleation, presumably involving the lofting of sea salt nuclei in strong thunderstorm updrafts into the upper troposphere. This created a reservoir of haze particles that continued to produce halide-salt-contaminated ice crystals during the extended period of cirrus cloud maintenance. The inference that marine microbiota are embedded in the replicas of some ice crystals collected over the CART site points to the longevity of marine effects. Various nucleation scenarios proposed for cirrus clouds based on this and other studies, and the implications for understanding cirrus radiative properties on a global scale, are discussed.

Abstract

This study uses a unique set of microphysical measurements obtained in a vigorous, convective updraft core at temperatures between −33° and −36°C, together with a microphysical model, to investigate the role of homogeneous ice nucleation in deep tropical convection and how it influences the microphysical properties of the associated cirrus anvils. The core and anvil formed along a sea-breeze front during the Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers–Florida Area Cirrus Experiment (CRYSTAL–FACE).

The updraft core contained two distinct regions as traversed horizontally: the upwind portion of the core contained droplets of diameter 10–20 μm in concentrations of around 100 cm⁻³ with updraft speeds of 5–10 m s⁻¹; the downwind portion of the core was glaciated with high concentrations of small ice particles and stronger updrafts of 10–20 m s⁻¹. Throughout the core, rimed particles up to 0.6-cm diameter were observed. The anvil contained high concentrations of both small particles and large aggregates.

Thermodynamic analysis suggests that the air sampled in the updraft core was mixed with air from higher altitudes that descended along the upwind edge of the cloud in an evaporatively driven downdraft, introducing free-tropospheric cloud condensation nuclei into the updraft below the aircraft sampling height. Farther downwind in the glaciated portion of the core, the entrained air contained high concentrations of ice particles that inhibit droplet formation and homogeneous nucleation.

Calculations of droplet and ice particle growth and homogeneous ice nucleation are used to investigate the influence of large ice particles lofted in updrafts from lower levels in this and previously studied tropical ice clouds on the homogeneous nucleation process. The preexisting large ice particles act to suppress homogeneous nucleation through competition via diffusional and accretional growth, mainly when the updrafts are < 5 m s⁻¹. In deep convective updrafts > 5–10 m s⁻¹, the anvil is the depository for the small, radiatively important ice particles (homogeneously nucleated) and the large ice particles from below (heterogeneously or secondarily produced, or recycled).

Abstract

Detailed in situ data from cirrus clouds have been collected during dedicated field campaigns, but the use of the size and habit distribution data has been lagging in the development of more realistic cirrus scattering models. In this study, the authors examine the use of in situ cirrus data collected during three field campaigns to develop more realistic midlatitude cirrus microphysical models. Data are used from the First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Regional Experiment (FIRE)-I (1986) and FIRE-II (1991) campaigns and from a recent Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program campaign held in March–April of 2000. The microphysical models are based on measured vertical distributions of both particle size and particle habit and are used to develop new scattering models for a suite of moderate-resolution imaging spectoradiometer (MODIS) bands spanning visible, near-infrared, and infrared wavelengths. The sensitivity of the resulting scattering properties to the underlying assumptions of the assumed particle size and habit distributions are examined. It is found that the near-infrared bands are sensitive not only to the discretization of the size distribution but also to the assumed habit distribution. In addition, the results indicate that the effective diameter calculated from a given size distribution tends to be sensitive to the number of size bins that are used to discretize the data and also to the ice-crystal habit distribution.