A documentation of vertical and horizontal aircraft soundings of icing relevant cloudphysical parameters
Abstract
In a homogeneous st-cloud (in a high pressure area) the total water content (TWC) is nearly linearly increasing with increasing distance from the cloud base and obtains its largest value near the top (0.39 respectively 0.49 g/cu m). The median volume diameter (MVD) is nearly remaining constant and has predominantly small values (between 15 and 23 microns). The phase of particles in all st-clouds, evaluated up to now, was fluid. Such a regularity was not found in any of the other types of inhomogeneous clouds of a warm front. Apart from temperature (T), which is decreasing nearly linearly in these clouds too, the course of TWC and MVD is very irregular. Both the parameters can have several maxima at different distances from the base. The maxima values of TWC can be up to 0.45 g/cu m and those of the MVD up to 460 microns. The phase of the particles could vary between fluid and solid. Not only the vertical structures, but also the horizontal structures show great differences in the particle distributions. In the clouds of a high pressure area more than 90 percent of the particles had diameters between 2 and 32 microns.
- Publication:
-
In AGARD
- Pub Date:
- 1990
- Bibcode:
- 1990lteo.agar.....H
- Keywords:
-
- Aircraft Icing;
- Clouds (Meteorology);
- Moisture Content;
- Sounding;
- Aircraft Safety;
- Atmospheric Temperature;
- Distance;
- High Pressure;
- Regularity;
- Warm Fronts;
- Geophysics