ETL Set to Participate in WISP-04 Field Project

February 10, 2004

Contact: Timothy Schneider

WISP-04, or the 2004 Winter Icing and Storms Project, is set to begin on February 15, 2004. WISP-04 follows close on the heels of the second Alliance Icing Research Study (AIRS-II), which was held November 3, through December 12, 2003, in Montreal, Canada. Like AIRS-II, WISP-04 seeks to understand how hazardous in-flight icing conditions form within clouds, and how we can remotely detect these conditions. In-flight icing occurs when an aircraft flies through super-cooled liquid cloud droplets. The NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory (ETL) will deploy its Ground-based Remote Icing Detection System (GRIDS) at a field site near Erie, Colorado, (approximately 35 km northwest of Denver). GRIDS combines a very sensitive, polarimetric Doppler cloud radar with a microwave radiometer and temperature profile information from the NOAA Rapid Update Cycle analysis, to find liquid within clouds and determine if it is super-cooled.

NOAA-ETL will be collaborating with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of North Dakota (UND). NCAR will employ a dual-frequency radar system, balloons and computerized icing forecast tools, whereas UND will fly their Citation aircraft to provide in situ confirmation of cloud conditions.

WISP-04 runs from February 15, through March 31, 2004. The Environmental Technology Laboratory's participation in WISP-04 is sponsored by the FAA's Aviation Weather Research Program.

ETL Set to Participate in WISP-04 Field Project

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