The big science highlight so far is that over May 2 through May 4, the GPM Ground Validation team finally collected a coordinated, co-scanned multi-radar frequency and dual-polarimetric dataset with the D3R and NPOL radars and we did it in one of the most complex multi-day precipitation events that we’ll measure in mid and high […]
Our forecasters at Iowa State, and I believe via the National Weather Service, are calling this a “once in a career storm.” The heavy snow in central Iowa—really, almost on top of us right now, is the reason. We ran NPOL all night long with the D3R radar in cold rain that started around 2 […]
We have been waiting for rain at the NPOL site. Yesterday evening it got very close- within 50 km or so. In the interim, we were waiting for convective cells to develop along what is called a radar “fine-line”. Fine-lines are little boundaries in the lowest part of the atmosphere associated with small changes in […]
A rain gauge will collect how much rain falls, but how exactly do scientists measure the size, shape, and fall speed of raindrops near the ground? Patrick Gatlin of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, sent us a couple photos from Iowa of the instrument that does exactly that: a two-dimensional video disdrometer. Shaped like a […]
Walt Petersen is the Ground Validation Scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, based at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. He manages all of GPM’s ground validation operations, the field campaigns that ensure that satellites measure rainfall and precipitation from space accurately. From May 1 to June 15, he is leading the Iowa […]
By Clément Miège Hi there! Today I have another story to share with you! It’s about the tracking of the temperature evolution of the firn aquifer temperature by using two thermistor strings that we set up in the two holes made by Jay (see Jay’s post on drilling for details). By tracking temperatures over a […]
By Lora Koenig Well, I am back in Greenbelt, Maryland, typing with warm fingers in a climate-controlled office with high-speed Internet and drinking fountain just down the hall. After fieldwork, I am always thankful for things I generally take for granted, like being able to charge my laptop by simply plugging it into an outlet. […]
By Ludovic Brucker We were on Greenland’s ice sheet for only a week, but despite the short deployment, we had to accomplish two main science objectives. The first was drilling two deep cores into the firn (aged snow) and ice (30- and 65-m deep, respectively), to insert temperature probes that will record temperature evolution at […]
By Clément Miège Hi there! Today I will give you some background on the radar measurements we collected in southeast Greenland. The radar we deployed is sensitive to snow density changes and to wet snow. The main goal of the radar measurements was to provide information about the spatial variations of the top of the […]
