The cloud, aerosol and precipitation spectrometer: a new instrument for cloud investigations

A new airborne particle spectrometer has been developed with the same measurement capabilities of the Forward Scattering Spectrometer Probes (FSSP) models 100 and 300 (FSSP-300 and FSSP-100), two-dimensional optical imaging probe (2D-OAP), the Multiangle Aerosol Spectrometer Probe (MASP) and hot-wire liquid water probe, but with a single integrated system. The cloud, aerosol and precipitation spectrometer (CAPS) measures particles from 0.35 mum to 1.55 mm in diameter and liquid water content (LWC) from 0.01 to 3 g m(-3). In addition to combining five probes into one, it measures airspeed at the sample volume and transmits a data stream that requires no special interfaces to communicate with most computers. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.