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Instrument: Water Isotope System for Precipitation and Entrainment Research (WISPER) |
WISPER is a counterflow virtual impactor on the NASA P-3 aircraft. |
Tuesday, August 18, 2020 |
Thursday, May 11, 2023 |
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Instrument: Pluvio² Precipitation Gauge |
The Pluvio² is a weighing precipitation gauge manufactured by OTT HydroMet in Germany that measures the amount and intensity of precipitation by determining its weight. It uses a high-capacity collection bucket to capture liquid, solid, and mixed precipitation types, and measure the weight of the collected water as a function of time. |
Tuesday, May 12, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: NASA S-band Dual Polarimetric Radar (NPOL) |
The NASA S-band Dual Polarimetric Radar (NPOL) is a research grade S-band, scanning dual polarimetric Doppler radar. It has equivalent capabilities to the Doppler radars of the U.S. National Weather Service’s Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) network. |
Monday, May 04, 2020 |
Tuesday, January 10, 2023 |
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Instrument: Conical Scanning Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (CoSMIR) |
The Conical Scanning Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (CoSMIR) instrument is an airborne, 9-channel total power radiometer originally developed to calibrate and validate the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) for the Defense Meteorological Satellite Project (DMSP) F-series satellites. |
Monday, April 13, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: High Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP) |
The High Altitude Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP) instrument is a Doppler radar designed to measure tropospheric winds through deriving Doppler profiles from cloud and precipitation volume backscatter (Li et al. 2016). |
Monday, April 06, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Lightning Instrument Package (LIP) |
The Lightning Instrument Package (LIP) is an airborne electric field detection system that can be flown onboard a variety of aircraft including NASA’s ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft, DC-8 aircraft, and Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). |
Tuesday, March 17, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Airborne Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) |
The Airborne Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS), also known as the AVAPS Dropsonde System, is a key atmospheric instrument that measures high resolution vertical profiles of ambient temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed and wind direction. |
Thursday, March 12, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Dual-frequency Dual-polarized Doppler Radar (D3R) |
The Dual-frequency Dual-polarized Doppler Radar (D3R) is a mobile Ku-/Ka-band fully polarimetric Doppler radar, specifically developed for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission Ground Validation (GV) program. D3R was designed to provide pre- and post-launch precipitation observations using frequencies similar to those of the Ku-/Ka-band Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) onboard the GPM Core satellite. |
Tuesday, March 10, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) |
The Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) is a multi-frequency, dual-polarized, cross-track scanning passive microwave radiometer managed by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The AMPR radiometer has flown on the NASA ER-2 and DC-8 aircraft. AMPR measures microwave brightness temperatures at four calibrated microwave frequencies. |
Thursday, March 05, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Autonomous Parsivel Unit (APU) |
The Autonomous Parsivel Unit (APU) is a laser-based optical disdrometer system that measures the size and velocity of falling precipitation particles, or hydrometeors. |
Friday, February 28, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Micro Rain Radar (MRR) |
The Micro Rain Radar (MRR) instrument is a Biral/Metek 24 GHz (K-band) continuous wave radar that derives profiles of drop size distributions and rain parameters from measured spectral power backscatter intensity. The MRR signal is transmitted vertically into the atmosphere where a small portion is scattered back to the antenna from rain drops or other forms of precipitation. |
Thursday, February 27, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: ER-2 X-band Doppler Radar (EXRAD) |
The ER-2 X-band Doppler Radar (EXRAD) is a dual-beam, 9.6 GHz X-band Doppler radar used for airborne weather observations. It is designed to operate at high altitudes, onboard the NASA ER-2 research aircraft (ER-2). EXRAD operates using two offset-feed parabolic antennas including a fixed nadir-pointing antenna and a scanning antenna that can scan conically or cross-track. |
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Cloud Radar System (CRS) |
The Cloud Radar System (CRS) is a 94 GHz, W-band polarimetric Doppler radar designed to operate aboard the NASA ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft or as a ground-based radar. Its very high frequency and short 3 mm wavelength make it very sensitive; perfect for cirrus cloud studies in particular as it has the ability to collect more detailed cloud and precipitation observations than traditional weather radars. |
Thursday, September 05, 2019 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Cloud Physics LiDAR (CPL) |
The Cloud Physics LiDAR (CPL) is a multi-wavelength backscatter Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) instrument used for aerosol and cirrus cloud studies. The CPL uses laser technology to detect, locate, and identify aerosol and cloud particles by measuring the backscatter coefficient for a volume of targets, retrieving information about their location and composition. |
Monday, July 15, 2019 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) |
A Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) is a network of antennas, GPS receivers, and processing systems that detect total lightning. |
Thursday, June 20, 2019 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Instrument: 2DVD Disdrometer |
A disdrometer is an optical device situated on a stationary ground station platform that measures properties of different hydrometeor (precipitation) types such as raindrops, snowflakes, and hail. The Two-Dimensional Video Disdrometer (2DVD) uses two high speed line scan cameras to provide continuous measurements of size distribution, shape, and fall velocities of all precipitation particles and types.
Two light planes, provided by two internal lamps, cut across the approximate 10x10 cm virtual measurement area and are projected onto two high speed line-scan cameras. Hydrometeors that fall through the light planes cast a shadow that is recorded by the two cameras nested within the instrument. The light planes are separated by a calibrated distance between which the velocity of a falling particle can be measured. The line scan cameras sample each plane every 18 microseconds; therefore, as a hydrometeor falls through the measurement area, several line scans of each image are recorded from two sides and two different heights allowing precise measurements to be made. |
Thursday, March 08, 2018 |
Thursday, June 25, 2020 |
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Earth Observations: Optical Transient Detector (OTD) |
The Optical Transient Detector (OTD), a space-based lightning imager on the Orbview-1 satellite, operated during April 1995 to March 2000 as a Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) prototype. OTD detected total lightning (cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-ground, and intracloud flashes) between +/- 75 degrees latitude, but could not distinguish between lightning types.
The OTD was essentially a wide field-of-view telescope that captured 500 Earth surface snapshots per second. The supporting electronics monitored these videos for the rapid pulses of light produced by lightning. The pulses were used to detect lightning at any time of day and determine the optical properties such as lightning location, radiant energy, and number of illuminated pixels.
Detection efficiency varied between 0.37 (noon) and 0.52 (~6pm), changing with sensor threshold settings, time, location, and storm structure. Detection efficiency was much less in the South Atlantic Anomaly where high radiation levels interfered with instrument measurement. If a storm had optically thick clouds, reflection off middle cloud layers, or low flash altitudes, the lightning signal was difficult to detect. |
Tuesday, March 21, 2017 |
Friday, October 19, 2018 |
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Earth Observations: Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) |
The Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) detects total lightning (i.e. cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-ground, and intra-cloud flashes) from a space-based platform.
The LIS is based on digital imaging technology and built around a 128 x 128 charged coupled device (CCD) array that is used to extract only the optical emissions of lightning through Earth's atmosphere for both day and night backgrounds. |
Tuesday, September 13, 2016 |
Wednesday, May 13, 2020 |
