26th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology

Monday, 3 May 2004: 2:00 PM
Sea spray droplet measurements in hurricanes Fabian and Isabel
Le Jardin Room (Deauville Beach Resort)
C. W. Fairall, NOAA/ETL, Boulder, CO; and J. E. Hare and A. A. Grachev
Poster PDF (85.5 kB)
In the fall of 2003 sea spray droplet size spectral measurements were made aboard a NOAA P-3 research aircraft as part of the CBLAST project. The data were obtained in low-altitude step profiles in hurricanes Fabian and Isabel. A total of 41 constant level measurement intervals were made at altitudes ranging from 66 to 760 m. Droplet size spectra were measured with a DMT Cloud Imaging Probe (CIP). The CIP measures in 62 equally spaced size bins of 25 micrometers diameter. Wind speeds (10-m) were on the order of 25 m/s. In this paper, data from the CIP will be presented and compared with previous measurements from ship and tower experiments. The data will also be compared with several existing droplet parameterizations.

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