APPENDIX B: SYNOPSIS OF SENSING NEEDS, STATE OF KNOWLEDGE,
STRENGTHS, AND WEAKNESSES
SENSING NEEDS
General
Characterization
1. Determine what characteristics of clouds are criti-
1. Good climatologies of icing conditions in all syn-
cal to flight from flight tests, tunnel tests, and nu-
optic situations.
merical models, in a spectrum of meteorological
2. Synoptic, continental, and global icing patterns
conditions from a wide variety of aircraft.
to determine system utility.
2. A meteorology-based icing intensity standard.
3. Fully characterize supercooled large droplet cli-
3. Determine the critical technical capabilities for a
matology.
remote-sensing system, such as range needed to
4. Characterize liquid-water content, drop size, and
observe through most icing conditions, scanning
temperature conditions in all icing synoptic situa-
rate/resolution, accuracy. Information needed is
tions.
primarily meteorological, but also operational.
5. Determine the variability of cloud characteristics
4. Weather forecasters and numerical models need
(such as liquid-water content, droplet size, and
downlinked objective, timely temperature, liquid-
temperature) within 3-D space (vertical and hori-
water content, and drop-size information that is
zontal).
accurate in position.
6. MVD or equivalent may not be acceptable
because they poorly represent "nonstandard" (i.e.,
STATE OF KNOWLEDGE
non-Gaussian) distributions of drop sizes
observed in clouds with drizzle drops.
Characterization
7. Drop-size distributions are often not correctly
1. 3-D organization of icing patches is poorly under-