Comparison of Concurrent Radar and Aircraft Measurements of Cirrus Clouds

Abstract

The instrumented North Dakota Citation Research Aircraft and the Navy’s Mid-Course Radar (MCR), a high-resolution radar, obtained concurrent measurements of anvil cirrus clouds during seven research flights over Cape Canaveral, Florida in the summer of 2015 (CAPE2015). The Citation Research Aircraft is equipped with instruments for measuring GPS location and altitude, pressure, temperature, dew point temperature, and wind velocity, as well as set of cloud physics instruments. The MCR is a C-band, dual-polarization, Doppler radar with the capability of switching between two waveforms, a low-resolution beam and a high-resolution beam. Two radar reflectivity data sets are included: an observed radar reflectivity factor data set from the MCR and a derived equivalent radar reflectivity factor data set obtained from microphysical probes onboard the Citation Research Aircraft