Airplane Instrument to Detect Ice Particles

Abstract

A simple instrument that detects ice particles has been developed for use in airplane studies of thunderstorms. Although sophisticated instruments are available for imaging atmospheric ice particles, the spatial resolution of the particle concentration determined from their data is limited by the small size of the sample area. The ice detector described here provides a real-time indication of the presence of ice crystals within and in the vicinity of clouds, and provides an approximate measure of their concentrations with excellent spatial resolution. This device, which is simple and inexpensive, has been flown for five summers in New Mexico thunderstorms.