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WiSE Research Spotlight: WiSE Ph.D. student Amber Reynolds

WiSE Ph.D. student Amber Reynolds spent nearly three weeks this summer in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and Omaha, Nebraska, as part of the Mid-Latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E). While in Ponca City, she served as radar scientist for the NASA Polarimetric (NPOL) which operated for the first time in a field campaign since a major upgrade to its antennae.

While in Omaha, Amber worked at Offutt Air Force Base with the High Altitude Wind and Rain Profiler (HIWRAP) that was mounted on the NASA high-altitude ER-2 aircraft that flies at 60,000+ feet. The data collected from this field campaign will be used to improve algorithms for estimating rainfall at the surface from the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite that will launch in 2013.

(Above) Image of HIWRAP mounted into a wing pod on the NASA high-altitude ER-2 aircraft.

(Above) A HIWRAP image of a cross-section taken through a storm overflown by the NASA ER-2 on May 24, 2011. The surface is denoted by a dark red line at approximately 19 km range. The lack of reflectivity near the surface during the time 21:39 to 21:40 UTC is due to attenuation (scattering) of the signal by strong precipitation. The short pulse at the bottom of the image will allow for the removal of sidelobes that occur near the surface as seen in the top panel. These preliminary images of Ku-bad reflectivity are uncalibrated at this point.

Credit for text and photos: WiSE Ph.D student Amber Reynolds.

For previous Research Spotlights: see Dr. Stephen Ekwaro-Osire