Revisiting particle sizing using greyscale optical array probes: evaluation using laboratory experiments and synthetic data

In situ observations from research aircraft and instrumented ground sites are important contributions to developing our collective understanding of clouds and are used to inform and validate numerical weather and climate models. Unfortunately, biases in these datasets may be present, which can limit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atmospheric measurement techniques 2019-06, Vol.12 (6), p.3067-3079
Main Authors: O'Shea, Sebastian J., Crosier, Jonathan, Dorsey, James, Schledewitz, Waldemar, Crawford, Ian, Borrmann, Stephan, Cotton, Richard, Bansemer, Aaron
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Airborne observation
Artefacts
Cirrus clouds
Climate models
Cloud physics
Clouds
Data
Datasets
Imaging techniques
Instrumentation
Laboratories
Laboratory experiments
Methods
Physics
Probes
Research aircraft
Sensors
Synthetic data
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Summary:In situ observations from research aircraft and instrumented ground sites are important contributions to developing our collective understanding of clouds and are used to inform and validate numerical weather and climate models. Unfortunately, biases in these datasets may be present, which can limit their value. In this paper, we discuss artefacts which may bias data from a widely used family of instrumentation in the field of cloud physics, optical array probes (OAPs). Using laboratory and synthetic datasets, we demonstrate how greyscale analysis can be used to filter data, constraining the sample volume of the OAP and improving data quality, particularly at small sizes where OAP data are considered unreliable. We apply the new methodology to ambient data from two contrasting case studies: one warm cloud and one cirrus cloud. In both cases the new methodology reduces the concentration of small particles (
ISSN:1867-8548
1867-1381
1867-8548
DOI:10.5194/amt-12-3067-2019