Droplet Measurement Technologies research scientist R. Subramanian (Subu) is currently spending a month in St. Croix participating in UCAR's Ice in Clouds Experiment - Tropical (ICE-T). The campaign involves studying ice nucleation in tropical clouds. Scientists are researching ice nucleation because they hypothesize that nucleation measurements can be used to predict the number of ice particles forming in certain clouds.


NSF/NCAR C-130 Plane Preparing for an Early-Morning Research Flight

Subu's participation in ICE-T includes BC measurements with the SP2 and particle asphericity estimates with the APSD, with both instruments sampling cloud residual particles and ambient aerosol. During the research flights so far, scientists have seen a variety of aerosol particles, including dust, biological material, fresh flare emissions and biomass smoke. This phase of the project involves 60 hours of research flights.

ICE-T will provide a rich data set to study the formation of ice in tropical clouds, and the DMT instruments will help explore the role of aerosols in these ice formation processes. In addition to sending the SP2 and APSD, DMT has contributed to the mission by loaning a UHSAS to researchers from Clarkson University for comparison against their instruments. Several of the NCAR probes being used for ICE-T are also manufactured by DMT.