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<br />OCTOBER 1988 <br /> <br />SUPER, BOE, HOLROYD AND HEIMBACH <br /> <br />1147 <br /> <br /> <br />the 2D-C probe is about 5 L per 100 m offlight. Anal- <br />yses for concentrations, size spectra, habits and cal- <br />culated precipitation rates were performed according <br />to the computerized techniques described by Holroyd <br />(1987). Particles classified as graupel were assigned <br />masses appropriate for graupel-like snow. Linear par- <br />ticles were considered to be planar crystals viewed on <br />edge because the temperature regimes were not indic- <br />ative of the development of needle or sheath habits. <br />Questionable images, those with centers apparently out <br />of the field of view, and those smaller than 0.1 mm <br />(about 4 pixels long) were rejected. The habits of the <br />remaining "valid" 2D-C images were estimated, and <br />masses and terminal velocities were assigned for pre- <br />cipitation rate calculations, It is noteworthy that Hol- <br />royd achieved reasonable agreement between snow- <br />board samples and his method of precipitation esti- <br />mation, which uses a ground-based aspirated 2D-C <br />probe. This was in spite of artificial increases in ice <br />particle concentrations caused by the aspirator, in one <br />case by a factor of2.4 (Holroyd 1986). The use of an <br />aspirator is not recommended by Norment (1987), a <br />conclusion based on numerical studies simulating flows <br />with water droplets and no turbulence. However, that <br />study did not investigate the response to ice particles <br />in air of normal turbulence. The size spectra were not <br />changed significantly by the aspirator in the Holroyd <br />case study, but more recent work by Deshler (1988) <br />has suggested that the aspirated probe can oversample <br />smaller particles and undersample larger particles. <br />Also included in the King Air data acquisition system <br />was a PMS 2D-P optical array probe. Analogous to the <br />2D-C probe, the 2D-P had a 200 Jlm resolution and <br />200-6400 Jlm range. The primary difference between <br />the probes lies in their magnification optics. The sam- <br />pling volume of the 2D-P is about 170 L per 100 m of <br />flight. <br />The ice particle size spectra calculated from the 2D- <br />C probe were compared with those from the King Air's <br />2D-P probe on several passes through seeded cloud. <br />Good agreement was found in the overlapping 0.6-1.0 <br />mm range, but the 2D-C concentrations were only 25% <br />to 75% of the 2D-P values for the 1.0-1.6 mm range. <br />The 2D-C concentrations were even smaller fractions <br />of the 2D-P values at larger particle sizes, yet a sub- <br />stantial portion of the calculated precipitation rates <br />from the 2D-C data will be shown to have been con- <br />tributed by particles greater than 1.0 mm diameter. <br />Because of these and other uncertainties, 2D-C precip- <br />itation rates estimated according to Holroyd's scheme <br />should be interpreted only in a relative sense, with the <br />expectation that they are usually underestimates, es- <br />pecially when particles larger than about 1.0 mm are <br />involved. Quantitative comparisons between seeded <br />and nonseeded snowfall estimated from the 2D-C probe <br />should therefore be treated with caution. Unfortu- <br />nately, surface precipitation observations were not <br />practical in the Bridger Range, so 2D-C precipitation <br /> <br />estimates at the lowest aircraft sampling level offered <br />the only documentation of a key variable. <br />Usually 10 to 30 valid hydrometeor images were <br />stored in each of the two buffers of the 2D-C (or 2D- <br />P) probe data acquisition system. A buffer would fill, <br />and while it waited for the opportunity to write the <br />information to magnetic tape, the second buffer would <br />be filling. The rate of buffer filling depended on particle <br />concentration and size, but the data systems were lim- <br />ited to recording no more than one 2D-C buffer per <br />second on the Turbo Commander and either a 2D-C <br />or a 2D-P buffer per second on the King Air. When <br />encountering high IPC, a buffer might fill in a fraction <br />of a second, so that sampling might occur only during <br />a portion of the period between recording times. <br />A 62-channel, one-dimensional spectrometer probe <br />(PMS 260X) covering the size range 10-620 Jlm was <br />also carried by the King Air. Particles occulting the <br />end elements of the 64-element optical array were ex- <br />cluded. The first three channels are difficult to interpret <br />because sample volume is a sensitive function of par- <br />ticle size; the 260X concentrations referred to in Part <br />II were for the size range 40-590 Jlm. Since the 260X <br />particle: concentration was routinely calculated for each <br />second of flight (unlike the 2D-C), it is referred to for <br />general information on cloud conditions. <br /> <br />c. Aircraft liquid water observations <br /> <br />All airborne SL W measurements over the Bridger <br />Range were derived from the PMS Forward Scattering <br />Spectrometer Probe (FSSP). The size bins selected for <br />the FSSP started at 1.0 Jlm. In all plots of SL W content, <br />the value was set to zero unless the FSSP detected at <br />least 1 () droplets cm - 3. This eliminated frequent cases <br />in which one to a few relatively large particles cm-3 <br />(presumably ice) would yield a calculated SL W content <br />of 0.0 1-0.03 g cm -3 , while the other liquid water sen- <br />sors detected no SLW. <br />A Johnson-Williams (J-W) liquid water content <br />meter, factory reconditioned prior to the field season, <br />was used over the Grand Mesa. Once zeroed outside <br />of cloud, it exhibited little drift and appeared to have <br />a resolution near 0.02 g m -3, As shown by Strapp and <br />Schemenauer (1982), a properly maintained J-W sys- <br />tem can yield measurements of reasonable accuracy. <br />The J-W device was compared with a Rosemount <br />871 FA icing rate meter (designed for aircraft use) using <br />observations from 18 March 1986, one of three exper- <br />imental days discussed in Part III. The Rosemount <br />meter, which cycles by heating the probe to shed ice <br />once a given mass adheres to it, was calibrated in a <br />small, locally designed wind tunnel with 3 m S-I flow <br />using droplets near 10 Jlm diameter. The mass of ice <br />required to cycle the unit was carefully weighed after <br />each of 11 tests and found to range from 0.032 to 0.045 <br />g. The mean value of 0.039 g was used, along with the <br />aircraft true air speed, probe cross-sectional area, and <br />