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<br />produced by seeding. Seeding could conceivably decrease the radar signal while increasing the <br />precipitation rate. Thus, radar is not suitable for detecting seeding effects except in special cases <br />such as reported by Hobbs et al. (1981). However, radar scanning can be very valuable in <br />monitoring natural variations in cloud structure over the entire region of the target. Such variations <br />can mask, or be mistaken for, real seeding signatures and it is important that they be documented. <br /> <br />Doppler radar sets can provide important wind measurements over the experimental area in <br />addition to reflectivity data, The wind data can help interpret the reflectivity patterns. <br /> <br />1.3.5 Precipitation Characteristics. - The most detectable effect of seeding at ground level <br />is usually an increase in the IPC. Changes in ice crystal sizes and habits, and silver content in the <br />snow, also suggest that seeding affected the precipitation process. However, successful seeding <br />usually increases the concentration of ice crystals to levels well above background. Much of the IPC <br />enhancement will likely be at small crystal sizes, less than a millimeter in diameter. Small crystals <br />produced by seeding are often in the form of hexagonal plates. An aspirated particle imaging probe <br />offers the most practical means of continuously monitoring ice crystal characteristics. However, it <br />should be supplemented by photographic documentation which provides more detailed data, though <br />requiring considerable manual reduction. <br /> <br />The riming process (also called accretional growth) is the freezing of tiny cloud droplets to the <br />falling ice crystals. It was shown to have been reduced in some of the reviewed experiments. This <br />should be a consequence of seeding if enough ice crystals are created to utilize most of the excess <br />SL W. The degree of riming usually is not discernible from aspirated imaging probe data so manual <br />or photographic observations are required at the surface target. <br /> <br />Obtaining snow samples for silver analysis at frequent intervals is useful in evaluation of seeding <br />effectiveness. Enhanced silver levels in the snow do not prove any seeding effect directly since most <br />or all of the silver could result from scavenging by natural snowflakes. However, finding only <br />background silver concentrations very likely means the target was not impacted by seeding. Thus, <br />the silver-in-snow data provide a check against claiming natural variations as seeding effects. <br /> <br />Highly sensitive precipitation gauges are needed for physical experiments because the seeding <br />effects may be very brief (e.g., only a fraction of an hour for a single seedline laid down by an <br />airplane), and precipitation rates may be low. For example, the total precipitation amounts from <br />individual seedlines of AgI reported by Super and Boe (1988) ranged from 0.10 to 0.22 mm water <br />equivalent. Conventional weighing gauges have a resolution of 0.25 mm, and are unsuitable for <br />physical experiments unless modified. <br /> <br />1.3.6 General Considerations. - Some of the reviewed studies attempted to "piggy-back" <br />physical experiments on experiments designed for statistical evaluation. This approach was generally <br />unsatisfactory. Most statistical experiments attempt to affect a sizable area for a significant time <br />requiring seeding of a relatively large volume of atmosphere, for example, the release of several <br />seedlines for airborne seeding. Such seeding takes substantial time. Yet, one of the main <br />approaches for analyzing physical experiments is to examine temporal changes in expected <br />characteristics (lPC, precipitation rate, degree of riming, etc.), This is best done by reducing the <br />time required for seeding, say to a single seedline for airborne seeding, thus reducing the effect of <br />natural changes in the constantly varying atmosphere during the course of the experiment. <br /> <br />i <br /> <br />: <br />1 <br />'I <br /> <br />8 <br />