An Airborne Profiling Radar Study of the Impact of Glaciogenic Cloud Seeding on Snowfall from Winter Orographic Clouds

Data from an airborne vertically pointing millimeter-wave Doppler radar are used to study the cloud microphysical effect of glaciogenic seeding of cold-season orographic clouds. Fixed flight tracks were flown downstream of ground-based silver iodide (AgI) generators in the Medicine Bow Mountains of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the atmospheric sciences 2010-10, Vol.67 (10), p.3286-3302
Main Authors: GEERTS, Bart, QUN MIAO, YANG YANG, RASMUSSEN, Roy, BREED, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cloud seeding
Clouds
Doppler radar
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Ice
Iodides
Meteorology
Mountains
Nucleation
Physics of the high neutral atmosphere
Radar
Reflectivity
Silver iodide
Snow
Snowfall
Winter
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Summary:Data from an airborne vertically pointing millimeter-wave Doppler radar are used to study the cloud microphysical effect of glaciogenic seeding of cold-season orographic clouds. Fixed flight tracks were flown downstream of ground-based silver iodide (AgI) generators in the Medicine Bow Mountains of Wyoming. Composite data from seven flights, each with a no-seeding period followed by a seeding period, indicate that radar reflectivity was higher near the ground during the seeding periods. Several physical considerations argue in favor of the hypothesis that the increase in near-surface reflectivity is attributed to AgI seeding. While the increase in near-surface reflectivity and thus snowfall rate are statistically significant, caution is warranted in view of the large natural variability of weather conditions and the small size of the dataset.
ISSN:0022-4928
1520-0469
DOI:10.1175/2010jas3496.1