Reexamination of Cloud-Top Temperatures Used as Criteria for Stratification of Cloud Seeding Effects in Experiments on Winter Orographic Clouds

Abstract

A reexamination of cloud-top temperatures used in the evaluation of winter orographic cloud seeding experiments is made. Cloud-top temperatures derived from rawinsonde data are found to be typically about 20°C too warm during daytime in the years 1965?72, and larger errors existed in prior years. From these findings it is concluded that temperature stratifications of seeding effects and the resulting conclusions in several studies are inappropriate.