HR: 11:20h
AN: A32B-05    [Abstracts]
TI: 2D optical array probe analysis of precipitating cumulonimbus clouds during EPIC 2001
AU: * Baumgardner, D
EM: darrel@servidor.unam.mx
AF: Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, 04510, Mexico
AU: Raga, G B
EM: raga@servidor.unam.mx
AF: Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, 04510, Mexico
AB: During the 2001 East Pacific Investigation of Climate (EPIC) experiment, numerous measurements were made of the size distributions of raindrops in convective clouds that were developing over a region of the Mexican inter- tropical convergence zone (ITCZ). These measurements were made with optical array probes (PMS 2D-C and 2D-P) mounted on the National Science Foundation Hercules C-130, operated by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. In addition to capturing shadow images of individual drops between 25 μm and 6400 μm, these instruments also record the distance between each drop via a measurement of arrival times in the spectrometers lasers. The separation distance, along with the drop size, provides detailed information about the microstructure of precipitation. The 2D probe measurements have been analyzed as a function of altitude above cloud base, horizontal distance from cloud edges, cloud droplet size distributions (2-50 μm) and vertical wind velocities. The objective of the analysis is to evaluate the spatial distribution of precipitation events with respect to the microphysical and dynamical processes that are related to the development and evolution of rain in tropical convective clouds. In addition, the reflectivity is calculated from the size distributions and evaluated to assess how inhomogeneities in the precipitation might be observed by meteorological radars.
DE: 0320 Cloud physics and chemistry
DE: 3311 Clouds and aerosols
DE: 3354 Precipitation (1854)
DE: 3394 Instruments and techniques
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly