Identification of Potential Aircraft Icing Regions Through Multispectral Analysisof Goes-8 Imagery

摘要

Aviation weather forecasters are still greatly challenged to forecast aviationweather hazards for large areas of atmosphere with few in-situ observations and little detailed information from which to work. Forecasters generally lack sufficient guidance to assist them in the prediction of icing occurrences or intensity. In-flight aircraft icing remains a significant aviation hazard. Icing intensity is related to the rate of accretion as well as the aircraft type and the icing's effects on aircraft flight performance. Icing regions currently can only be identified from subjective reports made by aircraft pilots (PIREPs). The severity of aircraft icing is found to be quite sensitive to temperature, liquid water content, and droplet size distribution along the flight path within the icing cloud. The difficulty of their direct measurement and the variability of these factors with altitude, position, and time, coupled with variable aircraft sensitivities, make forecasting and identifying icing environments quite difficult With the advent of the next generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), additional spectral channels with improved ground resolution are available for use in a wide variety of research applications. One important outcome of applied research based on improved GOES-8 imager products is analysis technique developments that will lead to better forecasts of hazardous aircraft flying conditions.