CAMEX-4 Cloud Microphysics

Table of Contents

Introduction
Data Format		 Data Products
Contact Information

Introduction

The fourth field campaign in the Convection and Moisture Experiment series (CAMEX-4) ran from 16 August to 25 September, 2001 and was based out of Jacksonville Naval Air Station, Florida. CAMEX-4 focused on the study of tropical cyclone (hurricane) development, tracking, intensification, and landfalling impacts using NASA-funded aircraft and surface remote sensing instrumentation. The NASA DC-8 carried numerous instruments durnig the the experiment.

The CAMEX-4 Cloud Microphysics package made use of several instruments. The majority of data were collected from Droplet Measuring Technology's (DMT) cloud and precipitation imaging probes (2D-C and 2D-P). These are 2 dimensional type optical array probes which collect particle size and low resolution shape data over sizes from about 25 to 1600 microns and 100 to 6400 microns respectively. Additional particle size distribution information was obtained from a DMT modified forward scattering spectrometer probe (FSPP-100) measuring in size range from 3 to 5 microns. These three instruments collected the data which makes up this dataset.

Data Naming Convention

Data are 'tarred' into daily (mission) files whose name appears as:

c4dcm_yyyy.jjj_101mmm.tar

where c4dcm represents the CAMEX-4 Cloud Microphysics dataset, yyyy.jjj is the four digit year and the day of the year, mmm is the unique mission number.

When 'untarred', the daily file yields four additional files. Two are ASCII data files of the form:

mmddyyyycamex4_dc8_[instrument].txt

where mmddyyyy is the month, day and year, [instrument] is either 2dc_2dp or fssp telling the source instrument. Additionally, there are two .tar files of similar naming convention. When untarred, these files yield the sampled image files collected from the 2dc and 2dp probes.

Data Products

Data consists of both tabular data and image data (gif files). The 2D-P and 2D-C probe data have been consolidated into one data file per day, as have the data from the FSSP-100 probe.

Both the 2D data and the FSSP data have the same tabular format. An example of the FSSP data is shown below.

Project: CAMEX-4
Instrument: FSSP
Flight Date (mmddyyyy): 09242001
Start Time (hhmmss UTC): 184200
Stop Time (hhmmss UTC): 270800
This file created on: Wed May 22 17:42:31 2002
NOTE: Preliminary data.
Instrument PI: Andy Heymsfield, heyms1@ncar.ucar.edu Data contact: Aaron Bansemer, bansemer@ucar.edu
The time column refers to the starting time of each period.
The status column indicates whether the probe was operating at the specified time: 1=yes 0=no
Total concentration is the concentration of all particles detected by this probe in units of #/m^3.
Binned concentrations are normalized by bin width in units of #/m^4 (#/m^3/m)
Bin end-points (microns):
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 39 42 45 49

Time Status TotConc BinnedConc
-------------------------------
184200 0 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00
184201 0 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00
184202 0 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00 0.00e+00

Below is shown an example of the .gif imagery for the 2dc probe. Imagery for the 2dp is similar.

example of 2dc probe imagery

Contact Information

To order these data or for further information, please contact:

Global Hydrology Resource Center
User Services
320 Sparkman Drive
Huntsville, AL 35805
Phone: 256-961-7932
E-mail: support-ghrc@earthdata.nasa.gov
Web: http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/