The PICASSO Project: Using Airborne in-Situ Observations with Co-Located Ground-Based Multi-Frequency Radar to Study Ice Microphysics

In early 2018, a number of deep ice clouds were sampled in the southern UK as part of the PICASSO project - Parameterizing Ice Clouds using Airborne obServationS and triple-frequency dOppler radar. Ice particles were sampled by a suite of in-situ instrumentation, including numerous Optical Array Probes (spanning a range from 10 microns – 2cm), Mie Scattering Spectrometers, bulk water sensors, a Cloud Particle Imager, and a Holographic Imaging probe. The aircraft typically flew along a set radial from the Chilbolton Facility for Atmospheric and Radio Research (CFARR) ground site. At the same time, co-located triple frequency observations were obtained from CFARR with synchronized 3, 35 and 94GHz radars. A unique tracking system was used to gain extremely accurate colocation between the in-situ and radar measurements. Additional measurements from 5 and 10 GHz radars were also made.

This talk will present an overview of the campaign, examples of data from case studies, and new analysis to derive the density of various types of ice particle from the in-situ bulk water content, in-situ particle size distributions, and multi-frequency radar data.