Cirrus and Anvils: European Satellite and Airborne Radiation measurements project (CAESAR) and Winter Experiments (WINTEX)
FAAM aircraft flying over Chilbolton on 12th Jan 2007
Aircraft flights took place over Chilbolton Observatory during January and February 2007 for both the CAESAR and WINTEX campaigns. The picture on the right shows the FAAM (link opens in a new window) aircraft flying over Chilbolton on the 12th January 2007 as the 25m dish scanned along its path. Three radars, CAMRa at 3GHz, ACROBAT at 1275MHz both using the 25m dish and the 94GHz mounted on the side of the 25m dish, tracked its path providing scientists with detailed information on the clouds and precipitation.
CAESAR is in its third stage and is a field campaign designed to understand the radiative properties of cirrus cloud over a wide range of wavelengths in combination with airborne in situ measurements of cirrus microphysical properties.
Flights using the FAAM BAe-146 measured frontal and anvil cirrus, co-incident with the CloudSat Aqua-train, SEVERI and AATSR satellites over the Chilbolton cloud radars and lidars as well as ocean/sea surrounding the UK. Aircraft measurements were used to obtain vertical profiles of ice crystal size, shape and IWC and observe how these quantities vary in the horizontal direction so that a good statistical sampling is obtained representative of the cirrus microphysical state. Measurements will be made at different times of the year to observe the different types of cirrus clouds.
WINTEX is a series of Met Office winter experiments to be flown from Cranfield.
