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June
4, 2007 The creation of rain
is the result
of a variety of physical processes. These processes influence each
other and
play out both at an extremely small scale (several micrometers) and on
a very
large one (100 kilometers). The spatial scale of weather models is a
few
kilometers, and physical processes which occur at a smaller scale have
to be
approximated. Cloud formation is an example of this. The complexity and
differences in scale make weather modeling inaccurate in predicting the
time
and place of a downpour, and the quantity of rain which will ultimately
fall. The TU
Delft On June 4, TU Delft
moved the
TARA (Transportable Atmospheric RAdar) atmosphere radar to The TU Delft will
also have
access to two research aircraft (one French, the other German) which
will fly
through the clouds to measure their physical properties. These aircraft
have
been specially assigned to two Delft PhD candidates. Within this
international
Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study (COPS), TU
Delft will
be mainly concerned with the question as to how cloud and rain
formation is
influenced by dust particles in the atmosphere. Climate
Models The influence of the
aerosol-cloud interaction on the earth’s radiation balance is
also one of the
greatest unknowns in climate models. The data collected during COPS
will be
suitable for improving models describing the relationship between
atmospheric
dynamics and cloud formation. Schedule - TARA will
be transported
to
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