Effective prediction of global phenomena requires detailed knowledge of temperatures, rainfall rates, and particle size distributions. To gain an understanding of the effects of tropical latent heating on global atmospheric circulation, satellite measurements of tropical precipitation patterns have been proposed using sensitive, sophisticated, infrared and microwave systems. To obtain surface truth data at sea, instruments must be flown aloft in order to reduce ship interference, sea spray contamination of data, etc. No single commercially available device can meet all the needs for at-sea rainfall measurements. The innovation is to monitor particle sizes through the use of multiple instruments such that the merging of data from the instruments is statistically tractable. This project will investigate an optical sizing technique, fiber-optics data transfer, and data reduction algorithms which can be combined into a highly portable instrument for measuring a broad, particle-size spectrum and rainfall rates while carried aloft by a remote, tethered vehicle.
Potential Commercial Applications:Applications could occur in testing aircraft for meteorological effects.STATUS: Project Proceded to Phase II
