Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) Calibration and Geophysical Retrievals

No abstract availabl

Geophysical Retrievals During OLYMPEX/RADEX Using the Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer

The Olympic Mountains Experiment and Radar Definition Experiment (OLYMPEX/RADEX) took place Fall 2015 Spring 2016 in Washington, United States. The Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR) was flown on NASA ER-2 aircraft during science flights. This poster summarizes advancements in geophysical retrievals using AMPR data from OLYMPEX/RADEX. Calm ocean has low emissivity at microwave frequencies; wind creates foam increases emissivity. Liquid hydrometeors in atmosphere generally yield higher brightness temperature (T(sub b)) due to their higher reflectance. Effect of liquid hydrometeors depends highly on frequency resonance increases with increasing frequency, as does absorption (e.g., due to water vapor). Retrieve cloud liquid water (CLW), water vapor (WV), and 10-m wind speed (WS) using multiple T(sub b)

Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) Wind Speed Retrievals and Validation Using Dropsondes

Surface wind speed retrievals have been generated and evaluated using Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) measurements from flights over Hurricane Joaquin, Hurricane Patricia, Hurricane Marty, and the remnants of Tropical Storm Erika, all in 2015. Procedures are described here for producing maps of brightness temperature, which are subsequently used for retrievals of surface wind speed and rain rate across a approx.50 km wide swath for each flight leg. An iterative retrieval approach has been developed to take advantage of HIRAD's measurement characteristics. Validation of the wind speed retrievals has been conducted, using 636 dropsondes released from the same WB-57 high altitude aircraft carrying HIRAD during the Tropical Cyclone Intensity (TCI) experiment. The HIRAD wind speed retrievals exhibit very small bias relative to the dropsondes, for winds tropical storm strength (17.5 m/s) or greater. HIRAD has reduced sensitivity to winds weaker than tropical storm strength, and a small positive bias (approx.2 m/s) there. Two flights with predominantly weak winds according to the dropsondes have abnormally large errors from HIRAD, and large positive biases. From the other flights, root mean square errors are 4.1 m/s (33%) for winds below tropical storm strength, 5.6 m/s (25%) for tropical storm strength winds, and 6.3 m/s (16%) for hurricane strength winds. Mean absolute errors for those categories are 3.2 m/s (25%), 4.3 m/s (19%), and 4.8 m/s (12%), with bias near zero for tropical storm and hurricane strength winds

Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) Wind Speed Retrievals and Assessment Using Dropsondes

The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) is an experimental C-band passive microwave radiometer designed to map the horizontal structure of surface wind speed fields in hurricanes. New data processing and customized retrieval approaches were developed after the 2015 Tropical Cyclone Intensity (TCI) experiment, which featured flights over Hurricanes Patricia, Joaquin, Marty, and the remnants of Tropical Storm Erika. These new approaches produced maps of surface wind speed that looked more realistic than those from previous campaigns. Dropsondes from the High Definition Sounding System (HDSS) that was flown with HIRAD on a WB-57 high altitude aircraft in TCI were used to assess the quality of the HIRAD wind speed retrievals. The root mean square difference between HIRAD-retrieved surface wind speeds and dropsonde-estimated surface wind speeds was 6.0 meters per second. The largest differences between HIRAD and dropsonde winds were from data points where storm motion during dropsonde descent compromised the validity of the comparisons. Accounting for this and for uncertainty in the dropsonde measurements themselves, we estimate the root mean square error for the HIRAD retrievals as around 4.7 meters per second. Prior to the 2015 TCI experiment, HIRAD had previously flown on the WB-57 for missions across Hurricanes Gonzalo (2014), Earl (2010), and Karl (2010). Configuration of the instrument was not identical to the 2015 flights, but the methods devised after the 2015 flights may be applied to that previous data in an attempt to improve retrievals from those cases

A case study of eight type 2 diabetic stage 4 chronic kidney disease patients showing lower glycemic variability with faster-acting insulin aspart as compared to insulin aspart

Background. Peaks and nadirs of blood glucose level varying daily in a person is referred to as glycemic variability (GV). GV associated with diabetics has been recently linked to cardiovascular disorders (CVD) or even chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression. Faster-acting insulin aspart is the latest ultra-rapid acting bolus insulin which has shown much lesser intra- and inter-patient variability as compared to conventional bolus insulin. Material and methods. However, inadequate data exist regarding GV in patients with advanced stages of CKD. Hence, with this objective, the present case study was undertaken with eight patients divided into two equal groups, wherein faster-acting insulin aspart and insulin aspart were used as the boluses, respectively. Continuous glucose monitoring data of the patients were taken for the initial four days to calculate mean amplitude of glycemic excursion (MAGE) of the total four days for each individual (mmol/L) to see the difference in GV. A value of > 3.607 mmol/L (65 mg/dL) was considered to be statistically significant. Results. In this case study of eight stage 4 CKD type 2 diabetic patients, statistically significant lower GV was observed in the faster-acting insulin aspart arm when compared with the insulin aspart arm. The pvalue was 0.0004 in unpaired t-test and < 0.05 for U in Mann-Whitney U test after ruling out the baseline confounding factors. Conclusions. This study confirms the stable pharmacokinetic and dynamic properties of faster-acting insulin aspart and subsequent studies with larger numer of patients are required for a conclusive outcome

Impurities in quasi-one-dimensional droplets of binary Bose mixtures

Recently created self-bound quantum droplets of binary Bose mixtures open intriguing possibilities for the study of impurity physics. We show that the properties of impurities embedded in quasi-one-dimensional droplets are determined by the interplay between back-action and quantum fluctuations. Due to such back-action, repulsive impurities may form a metastable quasi-bound state inside the droplet. In contrast, attractive impurities remain bound to the droplet, leading to the hybridization of droplet and impurity excitations, as well as to peculiar scattering resonances. Interestingly, impurity trapping may result solely from the effect of quantum fluctuations. These results may readily be probed experimentally by doping the currently available droplets of binary mixtures

Calibration of Hurricane Imaging Radiometer C-Band Receivers

The laboratory calibration of airborne Hurricane Imaging Radiometer's C-Band multi-frequency receivers is described here. The method used to obtain the values of receiver frontend loss, internal cold load brightness temperature and injected noise diode temperature is presented along with the expected RMS uncertainty in the final calibration