Despite advancements in the capability and quality of instrumentation aimed at microphysical measurements within clouds, serious gaps remain that in turn have implications for understanding of earth's weather and climate. Many of these can be traced to inherent uncertainties and limitations of measurement technologies employed aboard cloud-penetrating research aircraft and, just as importantly, the design and behavior of numerical algorithms used to process these raw data. As these instruments have evolved, so have the methodologies for associated data processing and interpretation, however this evolution has not progressed systematically and so processing approaches developed by different groups have too-seldom been evaluated against one another in order to firmly determine optimum processing methods and associated uncertainties. The intellectual merit of this workshop centers upon participant travel support to allow a more diverse group of established experts and students to undertake a carefully organized discussion, evaluation and documentation of a comparatively large selection of processing and analysis methods and associated algorithms that are presently being applied by the international meteorological research community.
Broader impacts of this workshop will include educational opportunities for both early-career workshop participants and students contributing to and later accessing workshop publications, and by facilitating involvement of workshop participants drawn from underrepresented groups. Following the meeting, a technical review of the algorithms that describes their essential components, how they are implemented and their inherent uncertainties and containing a comprehensive bibliography to guide new students and practitioners will be formally published in either the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology or Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. Benefits will ultimately extend to the atmospheric sciences community at-large, who will for the first time have a firm basis on which to compare diverse cloud microphysical datasets.
A workshop was convened July 5 and 6, 2014 in Boston, MA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s conference center covering the topic of methodologies for processing, analyzing, interpreting and presenting results from instruments that measure cloud properties. The meeting was attended by 80 participants: 56 scientists and 24 graduate students from 16 universities and 16 research institutes representing 13 countries from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Prior to the workshop 40 data sets generated by 16 types of cloud physics instruments and submitted by 14 research institutes were distributed for participants to process with their own analysis software. The processed data were then compared to identify differences related to methodology that formed the basis of discussion during the workshop. Consensus was reached by the participants on a number of issues related to algorithms for correcting known measurement limitations like coincidence and shattering but there remain a number of open areas of debate with respect to the processing of optical array probe measurements. Two technical paper are currently underway that will be submitted either to the EGU journal Atmospheric Measurement Techniques or the AMS Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. One paper focuses on data analysis of measurements from single particle light scattering spectrometers and the other on measurements from optical array probes.
