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High Spectral Resolution Lidar measurements of clouds and snowfall in the Arctic
EOL Seminar
| What | Seminar |
|---|---|
| When |
2008-04-24 13:00
2008-04-24 14:00
2008-04-24 from 13:00 to 14:00 |
| Where | Foothills Laboratory, Room 1022 |
| Contact Name | Petter Weibring |
| Contact Email | weibring@ucar.edu |
| Contact Phone | 2052 |
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Edwin Eloranta
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI
Unique measurments of Arctic clouds and precipitation are derived from the University of Wisconsin Arctic High Spectral Resolution Lidar(HSRL) and the NOAA MMCR radar. These systems have operated nearly continuously at Eureka, Canada (80 N 86 W) since August of 2005. This presentation will begin with a brief description of the Arctic HSRL and a similar instrument now under construction for the UCAR Gulfstream aircraft. The bulk of the presentation will be used to describe HSRL/MMCR measurements of cloud fraction and snowfall rates. A 30-month climatology of cloud fraction will be presented. It will be shown that cloud fraction is highly dependent on the optical depth threshold used to define the presence of cloud. HSRL and MMCR cross section measurements provide estimates of particle mass that can be used with MMCR Doppler velocities to estimate snowfall rate. These estimates are sensitive to the assumed shape of the snowflakes. It will be shown that the the lidar/radar estimate of particle size coupled with the Doppler velocity provides information on particle shape.