David J. Delene's Current and Pending Projects

Current Research Projects

Polarimetric Cloud Analysis and Seeding Test 2 (POLCAST2): 2008 Field Season
POLCAST2 is a cooperative effort involving the University of North Dakota (UND), National Center for Atmospheric Research NCAR), Weather Modification Incorporated (WMI), and Ice Crystal Engineering (ICE) which is sponsored by the North Dakota Atmospheric Resource Board.  The overall research objective is to better understand the effects of hygroscopic cloud seeding at cloud base on convective clouds in North Dakota.  Field measurements using the UND Polarimetric Radar and an instrument WMI Cessna 340 are between June 9 and July 11 2008.  [POLCAST2 Wiki Page]

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Assessment of Rainfall Augmentation
The Saudi Arabia research project involves conducting atmospheric measurement to understand the effects of cloud seeding in Saudi Arabia.  The overall research objective is to address the question, "Can rainfall be increased in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using cloud seeding techniques, and if so by how much?"  The Saudi Arabia cloud seeding operation is lead by Weather Modification Inc (WMI) of Fargo, North Dakota.  WMI has ten aircraft in Saudi Arabia equipped for cloud seed, two of the aircraft also have advanced scientific instrumentation on board.  I am one of the flight scientist for the King Air 200 research aircraft which has instruments for conducting atmospheric chemistry, aerosol, and cloud physics measurements.  The focus of my analysis is to analyize the data collected, perticularly the cloud microphyiscal data, to access the effectiveness of an operational seeding program and to improve the scientific understanding of the precipation formation process in the Saudi Arabia region.

Rainfall Enhancement Studies for Mali
The project involves conducting scientific research in association with rainfall enhancement operations conducted by Weather Modification Inc of Fargo, North Dakota.  The project involves conducting and analyzing airborne measurements to understand and evaluate the operational rainfall enhancement project.  Airborne measurements of aerosol and cloud properties will be conducted during 2 months of field measurements in Mali, West Africa.  The research goals are to determine the best methods to use for rainfall enhancement in Mali and to start collected measurements for an assessment of the effectiveness of the operational seeding program.

TAMDAR Turbulence Evalution
Measurements from aircraft flights of the University of Wyoming King Air research aircraft are evaluted to test the ability of the TAMDAR probe to measure atmospheric turbulence.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems Remote Sense and Avoid Systems
The project's goal is to develope a feature list for an operational system that uses ganged phased array radars to support the operation of Unmmaned Aircraft Systems within the National Airspace.
Pending Research Projects

Investigation of Crop Harvesting as a Source of Climatically Important Aerosols
The project's hypothesis is that modern crop harvesting in the Midwest United States using harvesting combines is a source of atmospheric aerosols that are of climatic importance which need to be incorporated into atmospheric models.  The research objective is to test this hypothesis by conducting measurements during wheat harvesting to quantitatively estimate the climatic importance of atmospheric aerosols resulting from regional harvesting activities. 

Development of an acoustic cloud condensation nuclei counter
Dr. Delene is working with Dr. Marcellin Zahui from the Mechanical Engineering Department at UND to develope an acoustic cloud condensation nuclei counter.  This research project addresses the need in the Earth system sciences for instruments that use new measurement methods.  Currently, most instruments used to measure atmospheric particles and hydrometers use some type of optical detection system.  Our proposed acoustic hydrometer detector will allow for a larger sample volume than is used in optical detection systems which will allow for more accurate measurements at faster sampling rates.

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