1. COnvective Precipitation Experiment- Microphysical and Entrainment Dependencies (COPE-MED) PIs: Jeff French, David Leon, Sonia Lasher-Trapp, Also in field: Alexei Korolev, Daniel Moser University of Wyoming King Air Group Dates: 3 July – 28 August 2013 (8 weeks)

2. Understanding Microphysical Pathways and their Effect on Precipitation Formation Schematic illustration of microphysical pathways active in a mixed phase convective cloud Motivation:  to investigate how changes in the relative strengths of various microphysical pathways affect precipitation formation. Of particular interest is how differences in the strength of the warm rain process impact, directly and through ice multiplication, the development of convective precipitation. Sampling Strategy: Cloud samples at or just above the 0 C isotherm to document growth of precipitation through warm-rain Sampling from -5 to -15 C to document the onset of ice, ice multiplication, and transport of ice from other (higher) regions in cloud

3. Understanding Entrainment in Early Stages and Impacts on Warm Rain and Ice Formation Questions:  Is warm rain process especially strong when entrainment appears to be less effective? Does a strong warm rain process imply some rainout, limiting condensate for riming at later stages? What scenario ultimately produces more convective rainfall?  How does entrainment affect secondary ice production? What are the limiting factors, such as cloud water depletion through entrainment and mixing, or reduction of large droplets due to a less productive warm rain process? Sampling Strategy: Focus on growing turrets, 0 to -15 C Penetrating tops or passing just above tops to document dynamics with dual-Doppler WCR Coordinated with -146 to document microphysics in growing turrets

4. Observing Facilities and instrumentation for US COPE FacilitydetailsUse Wyoming King Air100 flt hours 25 flights 8 weeks Critical for all aspects of US-COPE Airborne Remote Sensors Wyoming Cloud RadarUp/Dual-Down profiling 15-30 m resolution Attenuation-presence of large liquid drops; Cloud structure & dynamics/entrainment Wyoming Cloud LidarNadir profiling, 5-10 m resolution Cloud margins/entrainment, some bulk phase discrimination In Situ Instruments Wind, temperature, and moisture Gust probe, Rev flow T, chilled mirror Environment and in-cloud sampling, cloud dynamics & thermodynamics, turbulence FSSP and CDP Cloud droplet size distribution (1 – 50 microns) Fast2DC and 2DP Anti-shatter tips, 64 diode 2DC 50+ micron size distribution, phase discrimination Nevzorov Probe TWC/LWCPhase discrimination of cloud/small precipitation particles w/ CIP Hotwire LWC, PVM, Rosemount Icing LWC3 independent measures of cloud liquid water content

5. WCR & WCL Up Beam: Reflectivity Doppler Velocity LDR/ρ hv (Useful for discriminating between liquid & ice) Down & Down-Aft Beams: Reflectivity Doppler Velocity (Vertical-Plane Velocity Fields) Single-Polarization Only (No LDR) WCL Downward-looking only Cloud boundary determination Limited phase information Resolution: ≤ 1.5 m vertical; ≤ 10 m along-track

6. Strong attenuation/extinction indicative of ~1 mm diameter liquid drops (note lack of multiple scattering tail) Strong attenuation/extinction w. multiple scattering tail indicates graupel or large raindrops Streaks of high LDR (> -18 dB) indicative of graupel For COPE LDR on Up beam only! Monotonic increase of LDR w range is multiple scattering artifact

7. Understanding the Importance of the Warm Rain Process (1500 s) Warm Rain (g/kg) Total water (g/kg) Frozen (g/kg) Are the heaviest precip events associated with a stronger warm rain process? Does this make ice processes more productive, through Hallet-Mossop or other microphysical pathways? (1200 s) (1350 s) (1500s)

8. Modeling Cumulus Entrainment Cloud water mixing ratio: 0-1 g kg -1 1-2 g kg -1 2-3 g kg -1 3-4 g kg -1 >4 g kg -1 Red= outward velocity, Blue= inward velocity What are the primary factors that might limit the amount of entrainment in precipitating convection: Wider clouds? Less vertical shear? A more humid environment? Cloud mergers? How does entrainment affect the DSD and thus secondary ice production like the Hallet-Mossop process?

9. Wyoming King Air

10. Location The King Air will likely be based at Capital Air in Exeter. Weston Aviation in Newquay is being considered as an alternate.

11. Crewing At least two University of Wyoming personnel – Single Pilot – Flight Scientist One or two scientists – Principal scientist sits in co-pilot seat. – Room for an additional 4 th operator/observer

12. Crew guidelines Seven flight hours per day. Fourteen hours pilot duty cycle. Twelve hours crew rest. Six consecutive work days.

13. Flight Considerations Approximately four hours per flight 28,000 feet ceiling due to RVSM rules Nominal aircraft speeds of 160 knots Any lightning strikes require an inspection

14. Flight Tracking Chat through our INMARSAT system SPOT tracker gives updates every 5 minutes FlightAware or equivalent. The King Air was three aviation radios for air to air communications. Possible other low bandwidth communications through the sat-comm.

15. Data Aircraft data are in NCAR RAF-nimbus netCDF files. Radar and lidar files are netCDF. IDL software is available for analysis.

16. Upcoming Site Visit Monday, November 12: Arrive at Heathrow Tuesday, November 13: Cranefield Wednesday, November 14: South Hampton Thursday, November 15: Exeter Friday, November 16: Newquay Saturday, November 17: Return to the US

17. A couple finishing comments A second site visit is planned for the Spring Inter-comparisons with other aircraft are desirable.