Imaging clouds for weather forecasting
STONY BROOK, New York: Analysing and determining the structure of clouds remains a challenge for scientists trying to forecast weather.
A team of researchers at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), led by Professor Pavlos Kollias, is using news types or radar in combination with current meteorology technology to take an “MRI” of clouds.
In the same way an MRI and other imaging techniques help physicians visualise and understand what is happening within human body parts, and MRI of clouds helps scientists better understand what happens inside cloud formations.
Clouds are complex, fast evolving, occur over vast areas and as such are difficult to characterise using current technologies.
But with these new radar technologies and forecasting techniques, Kollias and colleagues at Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory are completing cloud and precipitation research at the SoMAS Radar Observatory that may evolve into a new methodology to improve weather forecasts.
“Using these technologies, we can pinpoint and highlight different components of the interior of clouds,” says Kollias.
“We can see how precipitation forms and grows in clouds and better predict not only if it will rain or snow, but how much rain or snow may accumulate on the ground.”