The Disdrometer An Instrument For Measuring The Distribution Of Raindrop Sizes Encountered In Flight

Author : Alan Bemis
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (31 download)

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Download or read book The Disdrometer, an Instrument for Measuring the Distribution of Raindrop Sizes Encountered in Flight written by Alan Bemis and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: Certainly one of the most important parameters in cloud physics, and studies associated with cloud physics, is the size distribution and number of the water particles within the region under study. Measurements of cloud particles have been made for many years on mountain tops and for a few years with airplanes. However, measurement of raindrop sizes with an airplane is a very different problem because a raindrop cannot be accelerated to aircraft speeds without breaking it up. This means that one cannot catch a sample raindrop on an airplane for examination, nor can one accelerate a raindrop to aircraft speeds in the laboratory. The difficulty, then, is one of calibration. Radar echoes from rain are becoming of increasing importance to meteorologists and radar engineers. At present our best experimental information concerning the 'density" of rain producing those echoes is based on rainfall rate and raindrop size measurements made at the ground below the region yielding the echo. Some measurements of total liquid water content within the region have also been made (5). Because raindrop size is of such prime importance in weather radar studies and also because of its general meteorological importance, the Signal Corps - M.I.T. Weather Radar Research Project undertook at its beginning to design an airborne drop size measuring instrument. A general discussion of the problem was presented in Section III A 3 c of our First Technical Report (2). Different methods of measurement were discussed and some of the reasons for selecting an optical method were mentioned. The design of a particular instrument was described which aimed at measuring not just individual drop sizes, but also the distribution of sizes. It has been named the Disdrometer (Distribution of Drops Meter). Construction of the first flight model was completed in .1947. This model, and several improved versions of it, have now been flown through many rain storms and have recorded many drop size distributions. Probably the most interesting conclusion from these measurements is that the drop size distribution within a rain storm varies rapidly from point to point, so rapidly that the sampling problem assumes major proportions, and so rapidly that one cannot hope for accurate correlation between the small.scale measurements made on the airplane and the comparatively large region returning the radar echo. Because of this variability it may be unnecessary to attempt very accurate measurements. The Disdrometer, however, was such an attempt and as such it has not yet succeeded. To date its measurements have suffered from a consistent error which leads to much higher total liquid water contents than are indicated by other, more dependable, measurements. Because the cause of this consistent error remains uncertain, the instrument is still under study. This report is, then, an interim report on the work. It covers the history of the development to date, and describes the device completely in its present form