Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES), a review: Past,present and future

The Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES) project’s objectives are to measure the reflected solar radiance (shortwave) and Earth-emitted (longwave) radiances and from these measurements to compute the shortwave and longwave radiation fluxes at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) and the surface and radiation divergence within the atmosphere. The fluxes at TOA are to be retrieved to an accuracy of 2%. Improved bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs) have been developed to compute the fluxes at TOA from the measured radiances with errors reduced from ERBE by a factor of two or more. Instruments aboard the Terra and Aqua spacecraft provide sampling at four local times. In order to further reduce temporal sampling errors, data are used from the geostationary meteorological satellites to account for changes of scenes between observations by the CERES radiometers.     

A new method for finding electromagnetic emitter location

The position of a source of radiation is often obtained from bearing data, taken over an interval of time, and combining it with navigation data. A new method using total least squares (TLS) has been suggested for the accurate estimation of an emitter location when bearing observation errors are random. Further, an iterative two-stage approach involving TLS and Kalman filtering is developed for accurate estimation of the emitter location when bearing observation errors are an algebraic sum of random and systematic errors. The elegance and efficacy of the proposed methods are illustrated through digital computer simulated examples     

Modeling of the very high velocity impact process with respect to in-situ ionization measurements

This overview deals with very high impact velocities, where complete vaporization of an impacting cosmic dust particle is to be expected upon expansion from the high pressure high temperature state behind the stopping shock (v > 15 km/s). The topics discussed are the mechanics and thermodynamics of compression, adiabatic release, equation of state and nonequilibrium states upon expansion. The case of very high particle porosity (ρ 1 g/cm³) and the case of very small dust masses (m < 10⁻¹⁷ g) are discussed from what one presently knows. The possibility of three body collisions in the expanding gas phase is discussed briefly. The effect of oblique impact is discussed with respect to its relevance to the ionization process. The numbers communicated are up to the highest “experimental” impact velocities (80 km/s, Halley mission). As one goes to lower impact velocities (20 < v < 30 km/s) there is still complete vaporization of the dust particle but ionization out of the bulk of the particle becomes low. Other than thermal processes may become important. Ideas are outlined to understand their physical nature.     

Investigation of vertical profile of rain microstructure at Ahmedabad in Indian tropical region

The microstructure of rain has been studied with observations using a vertical looking Micro Rain Radar (MRR) at Ahmedabad (23.06°N, 72.62°E), a tropical location in the Indian region. The rain height, derived from the bright band signature of melting layer of radar reflectivity profile, is found to be variable between the heights 4600 m and 5200 m. The change in the nature of rain, classified on the basis of radar reflectivity, is also observed through the MRR. It has been found that there are three types of rain, namely, convective, mixed and stratiform rain, prevailing with different vertical rain microstructures, such as, Drop Size Distribution (DSD), mean drop size, rain rate, liquid water content and average fall speed of the drops at different heights. It is observed that the vertical DSD profile is more inhomogeneous for mixed and stratiform type rain than for convective type rain. It is also found that the large number of drops of size <0.5 mm is present in convective rain whereas in stratiform rain, drops concentration is appreciable up to 1 mm. A comparison of measurements taken by ground based Disdrometer and that from the 200 m level obtained from MRR shows good agreement for rain rate and DSD at smaller rain rate values. The results may be useful for understanding rain structures over this region.