Identification

Title

Vertical motions in orographic cloud systems over the Payette River Basin. Part I: Recovery of vertical motions and their uncertainty from airborne doppler radial velocity measurements

Abstract

Vertical motions over the complex terrain of Idaho's Payette River basin were observed by the Wyoming Cloud Radar (WCR) during 23 flights of the Wyoming King Air during the Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime Clouds: The Idaho Experiment (SNOWIE) field campaign. The WCR measured radial velocity V-r, which includes the reflectivity-weighted terminal velocity of hydrometeors V-t, vertical air velocity w, horizontal wind contributions as a result of aircraft attitude deviations, and aircraft motion. Aircraft motion was removed through standard processing. To retrieve vertical radial velocity W, Vr was corrected using rawinsonde data and aircraft attitude measurements; w was then calculated by subtracting the mean W (sic) at a given height along a flight leg long enough for (sic) to equal the mean reflectivity weighted terminal velocity (sic)(t) at that height. The accuracy of the w and (sic)(t) retrievals were dependent on satisfying assumptions along a given flight leg that the winds at a given altitude above/below the aircraft did not vary, the vertical air motions at a given altitude sum to 0 m s(-1), and (sic)(t) at a given altitude did not vary. The uncertainty in the w retrieval associated with each assumption is evaluated. Case studies and a projectwide summary show that this methodology can provide estimates of w that closely match gust probe measurements of w at the aircraft level. Flight legs with little variation in equivalent reflectivity factor at a given height and large horizontal echo extent were associated with the least retrieval uncertainty. The greatest uncertainty occurred in regions with isolated convective turrets or at altitudes where split cloud layers were present.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7ws8z4j

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2022-11-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Conformity

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name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact