VIDEOSONDE IMAGES

T. Takahashi (Kyushu U., Japan)

Status: not released.

Data Access

Information about the availability of the videosonde images can be obtained from Tsutomo Takahashi at Kyushu University, Japan.

Background

A total of 29 videosondes were launched in the TOGA COARE area between 1988 and 1992. (Note: The platform(s) for this dataset is(are) unknown, but we have surmised that the R/V Hakuho-maru was a likely base, and so have associated it with this ship.) The videosondes, which use a 1680 MHz carrier wave, are capable of monitoring the images of cloud precipitation particles larger than 0.5 mm in diameter. Images were recorded on VHS tapes, which will be read frame by frame at Kyushu University, Japan.

We found different precipitation processes in different cloud systems. In solid cloud clusters of the size of a few hundred kilometers, the "rainband" cloud type showed heavy precipitation ranging from warm to frozen rain. In broad cloud clusters of a few thousand kilometers, on the other hand, we found weak, warm rain at low levels and graupel at upper levels. In the thick layered clouds, snowflakes and graupel dominated near the melting level.

Data File Information

For more information, please contact:

Tsutomu Takahashi
Department for Earth and Planetary Sciences
Kyushu University
Hakozaki, Fukuoka, 812
Japan

Phone: (81) 92-641-1101
FAX: (81) 92-632-2736