A Phase Separation Inlet for Droplets, Ice Residuals, and Interstitial Aerosols

Koolik, Libby; Roesch, Michael; Deloya, Lesly J. Franco; Shen, Chuanyang; Hallar, A. Gannet; McCubbin, Ian B.; Cziczo, Daniel J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2020-42

Preprints

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2020-42
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Preprints

27 Mar 2020

A Phase Separation Inlet for Droplets, Ice Residuals, and Interstitial Aerosols

Libby Koolik^1,2,3, Michael Roesch^1,4, Lesly J. Franco Deloya¹, Chuanyang Shen^1,5, A. Gannet Hallar^6,7, Ian B. McCubbin⁷, and Daniel J. Cziczo^1,2,8 Libby Koolik et al.

¹Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
²Department of Civil Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
³Ramboll, San Francisco, CA 94111, USA
⁴Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
⁵Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
⁶Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112
⁷Storm Peak Laboratory, Desert Research Institute, Steamboat Springs, CO 8048
⁸Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 USA

Received: 12 Feb 2020 – Accepted for review: 09 Mar 2020 – Discussion started: 27 Mar 2020

Abstract. A new inlet for studying the aerosols and hydrometeor residuals that compose mixed-phase clouds – the phaSe seParation Inlet for Droplets icE residuals and inteRstitial aerosols (SPIDER) – is described here. SPIDER combines an omni-directional inlet, a Large-Pumped Counterflow Virtual Impactor (L-PCVI), a flow tube evaporation chamber, and a Pumped Counterflow Virtual Impactor (PCVI) to separate droplets, ice crystals, and interstitial aerosols for simultaneous sampling. Laboratory verification tests of each individual component and the composite SPIDER system were conducted. SPIDER was deployed to Storm Peak Laboratory (SPL), a mountain-top research facility at 3210 m a.s.l. in the Rocky Mountains, for a three-week field campaign. SPIDER performance as a field instrument is presented with data that demonstrates its capability of separating distinct cloud elements and interstitial aerosol. Possible design improvements of SPIDER are also suggested.

Libby Koolik et al.