Image courtesy of Robert Wood

From: Dr. Robert Wood
Improved Meteorology Buoy (IMET), October 21, 2008

Flying into the night

Precipitation falling from stratocumulus clouds changes their structure and therefore affects how much sunlight they reflect. We call this form of light precipitation drizzle. So even though there is no sunlight falling on the clouds during the night, there is much more precipitation at this time and this eventually changes the clouds that remain at the end of the night when the sun rises.

Early this morning, at 3 o'clock in the morning, the NSF C-130 aircraft took off into the night to study drizzle. My role on the aircraft is 'mission scientist' which means that I am responsible for designing the flight plan and then working with the pilots to fly the mission. But before we can fly, much work needs to be done to prepare the aircraft for its mission. The photograph shows preparations being made before take-off on the runway at Arica. Our flight took us about 1500 kilometers (about half the distance across the United States) from the Chilean coast, into regions where drizzle is commonly located. Look at the map to see just how far offshore we fly. Try comparing this with the size of your own country.

Postcards from the Field: Climate Science from the Southeast Pacific

You might also be interested in:

Cool It! Game

Check out our online store - minerals, fossils, books, activities, jewelry, and household items!...more

Stratocumulus

Stratocumulus (weather symbol - Sc) clouds consist of water droplets and belong to the Low Cloud (surface-2000m) group. These clouds are low, lumpy, and gray. These clouds can look like cells under a microscope...more

Drizzle

Drizzle is light precipitation that is made up of liquid water drops that are smaller than rain drops. Drizzle can be so light that only a millimeter of accumulation is measured at the Earth's surface....more

Rhea George

Many students in atmospheric science were motivated to enter the field by some fascinating extreme weather event experienced as a child. This was not the case with me. When I was an undergraduate I was...more

Dr. Boris Dewitte

I'm a physical oceanographer interested in climate variability and especially the El Niño phenomenon. Other than the annual cyle of the seasons, El Niño is the largest pulsation of the climate. I'm interested...more

Dr. Paquita Zuidema

Hola! I am originally from the Netherlands and thereafter spent 3 years as a child in the Peruvian Andes, but I have lived most of my life in the United States. I received my bachelor's degree in physics...more

Lelia Hawkins

I am starting my fourth year of graduate school at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, studying atmospheric chemistry and climate science. I love earth science and have always wanted to do something...more

Dr. Jeff Snider

I am a university professor involved in studies of the concentration and type of particles contained within clouds. It is important to know these things in order to say how often clouds produce precipitation...more

Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA