*geeking out*
Good Morning, Livejournal. Although you may not have noticed, I haven't actuially been around this past week, as I spent the entirety of it in Brisbane, Queensland. Why? Well, I was there, as the start of my new life as a Serious Researcher, to observe/partake in a huge fieldwork project being run jointly by the BoM (The Australian Bureau of Meteorology) and NCAR (The National Centre for Atmospheric Research, USA).
And what is this project, you ask? Cloud-seeding. Yes, that program of the 70s, that no one ever managed to prove conclusively to be true. However, in the wake of Queensland's recent water issues (slightly alleviated by the rainy summer and current La Nina phase), we are running a two-year project to examine if it works, how it works, when it works and, in the meantime, how clouds themselves work, as that's one of the least understood and most critical aspects of the atmosphere, particularly when it comes to things like climate modelling and, y'know, predicting the impacts of global warming.
And how are we doing this?
With one fantastic radar, and two planes.
This is the CP2 Radar. Actually dating to the 1970s, after NCAR upgraded (I believe they're on CP4 now?) they kindly donated the radar to us, though we of course funded the facility and the housing and the upgraded technology etc. The actual radar is, of course, inside the dome. Said dome is, in fact, made out of canvas alone, but by blowing air constantly into the dome and maintaining an airlock, a pressure difference of 0.8kPa is sufficient to withstand winds of up to about 100knots and protect the radar from such unfortunate things as flying debris. Which would be bad.
And this is the radar dish. The thing that makes the CP2 Radar special is that, as well as being a Doppler Radar (meaning that it can record the radial velocity of the clouds as well as their position), it's also a polarimetric radar, the first of its kind in Australia. This means that it alternately radiates horizontally and vertically polarised radiation, so we can learn the size difference of the raindrops in the vertical and horizontal directions. This is really important to help us identify how heavy the rain is (because bigger droplets go oblate, i.e. wider than they are tall) and the type of precipitation (hail remaining spherical, for instance), to improve our rainfall estimation etc.
And here it is again. You might notice that there are two smaller dishes (you can only see one here) below the big dish. The large one is known as S-band radar, with a wavelength of 10cm. The smaller ones are X-band, with a 3cm wavekength. Because of different dependencies of attenuation etc on wavelength, comparing the two signals is often very useful, though X-band is only useful at close range.
Meteorologists in the controil room. As you can see, all of this is controlled and the data monitored using computers. The systems are quite impressive, as the radar has to be moved and controlled very precisely for accurate data. And the software for data viewing is just fun to play with. :) In case you're interested, there are several terrabytes of data stored in the mainframs, from just the past couple of months.
However, since it's a cloud seeing project, the radar isn't enough. This is the seeder-plane. Along the wings are the flares used to seed - AgI for cold clouds, and Hygroscopic flares for warm clouds (which is all they're getting atm). There are also some ejectable AgI at the base of the plane.
And the research plane. The two are usually flown simultaneously, so the research plane can be right up there to record exactly what the cloud is doing and what (if any) impact the seeder plane has. The clouds to be seeded are chosen randomly, but it's about 1:1, so we get a lot of analysis on unseeded clouds too.
There's a whooole heap of scientific equipment on the research plane, both inside (as seen here) and outside, probes on the wings etc. It's all very high-tech.
Twas a most interesting week. I learnt that, on fieldwork, there's really no such thing as weekends - if the weather is good (that is, cloudy) they work, regardless of timing, so some had been a long time without a break. I also had the joy of experiencing equipment issues and how people responded, listening in on horribly long debriefing sessions, and hanging out with scientists. A very rewarding trip, and looks like they'll be sending me back in March, before another trip to the BoM head office in Melbourne, perhaps in April. Free fares and accomodation, it's great. XD
And I got to spend friday and saturday at the gold coast, as was too sunny to work. Yay.
However, tomorrow begins the hard work and research that is to be my Masters project. Two years of research and matlab analysis of radar data, cluminated by a 50k thesis, here I come. Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?
And what is this project, you ask? Cloud-seeding. Yes, that program of the 70s, that no one ever managed to prove conclusively to be true. However, in the wake of Queensland's recent water issues (slightly alleviated by the rainy summer and current La Nina phase), we are running a two-year project to examine if it works, how it works, when it works and, in the meantime, how clouds themselves work, as that's one of the least understood and most critical aspects of the atmosphere, particularly when it comes to things like climate modelling and, y'know, predicting the impacts of global warming.
And how are we doing this?
With one fantastic radar, and two planes.
This is the CP2 Radar. Actually dating to the 1970s, after NCAR upgraded (I believe they're on CP4 now?) they kindly donated the radar to us, though we of course funded the facility and the housing and the upgraded technology etc. The actual radar is, of course, inside the dome. Said dome is, in fact, made out of canvas alone, but by blowing air constantly into the dome and maintaining an airlock, a pressure difference of 0.8kPa is sufficient to withstand winds of up to about 100knots and protect the radar from such unfortunate things as flying debris. Which would be bad.
And this is the radar dish. The thing that makes the CP2 Radar special is that, as well as being a Doppler Radar (meaning that it can record the radial velocity of the clouds as well as their position), it's also a polarimetric radar, the first of its kind in Australia. This means that it alternately radiates horizontally and vertically polarised radiation, so we can learn the size difference of the raindrops in the vertical and horizontal directions. This is really important to help us identify how heavy the rain is (because bigger droplets go oblate, i.e. wider than they are tall) and the type of precipitation (hail remaining spherical, for instance), to improve our rainfall estimation etc.
And here it is again. You might notice that there are two smaller dishes (you can only see one here) below the big dish. The large one is known as S-band radar, with a wavelength of 10cm. The smaller ones are X-band, with a 3cm wavekength. Because of different dependencies of attenuation etc on wavelength, comparing the two signals is often very useful, though X-band is only useful at close range.
Meteorologists in the controil room. As you can see, all of this is controlled and the data monitored using computers. The systems are quite impressive, as the radar has to be moved and controlled very precisely for accurate data. And the software for data viewing is just fun to play with. :) In case you're interested, there are several terrabytes of data stored in the mainframs, from just the past couple of months.
However, since it's a cloud seeing project, the radar isn't enough. This is the seeder-plane. Along the wings are the flares used to seed - AgI for cold clouds, and Hygroscopic flares for warm clouds (which is all they're getting atm). There are also some ejectable AgI at the base of the plane.
And the research plane. The two are usually flown simultaneously, so the research plane can be right up there to record exactly what the cloud is doing and what (if any) impact the seeder plane has. The clouds to be seeded are chosen randomly, but it's about 1:1, so we get a lot of analysis on unseeded clouds too.
There's a whooole heap of scientific equipment on the research plane, both inside (as seen here) and outside, probes on the wings etc. It's all very high-tech.
Twas a most interesting week. I learnt that, on fieldwork, there's really no such thing as weekends - if the weather is good (that is, cloudy) they work, regardless of timing, so some had been a long time without a break. I also had the joy of experiencing equipment issues and how people responded, listening in on horribly long debriefing sessions, and hanging out with scientists. A very rewarding trip, and looks like they'll be sending me back in March, before another trip to the BoM head office in Melbourne, perhaps in April. Free fares and accomodation, it's great. XD
And I got to spend friday and saturday at the gold coast, as was too sunny to work. Yay.
However, tomorrow begins the hard work and research that is to be my Masters project. Two years of research and matlab analysis of radar data, cluminated by a 50k thesis, here I come. Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?