RICO (clouds & climate processes)
RICO: Rain in Cumulus Over the Ocean, was a field program sponsored by NSF whose objectives were to evaluate precipitation in association with shallow cumulus across a broad range of scales. Specifically:
  • what are the principal mechanisms determining rain formation in shallow cumuli?
  • how does precipitation affect the structure of individual cumuli?
  • to what extent does precipitation determine the aggregate structure of fields of cumuli?

Further information about RICO is provided in the overview article.

 Operations area, and cloud field during RF01
These questions span a range of space and time scales, which we tried to sample during two months (Nov '04 -- Jan '05) of measurements over the eastern Atlantic and Western Caribbean. Operations were based out of Antigua and Barbuda, two of the leeward islands in the lesser Antilles. A wide array of instrumentation was deployed, centered around an approximately 100km radius area scanned by the SPol radar. In addition to SPol, RICO featured in situ measurements by three aircraft, ground sampling at Antigua, surface measurments from Spanish Point Barbuda, and a wide array of surface layer, and active remote sensing from the RV Seward Johnson
NSF/NCAR C130 during RICO Flight operationsNSF/NCAR S and K band polarized radar as depolyed during RICOResearch Vessel Seward Johnson as deployed during RICOView of NCAR/NSF C130 from BAE 146 during coordinated flight operations in RICOLooking down on Spanish Point (Barbuda)
Links:

Publications: A running (informal) list of publications based on the RICO data

Photos: approximately 400 photos taken during RICO. They are browsable and show the range of facilities deployed and conditions encountered.

EOL maintains the field catalog, and the project data archive.

Many University and Lab groups are maintaining RICO sites in association with their participation in the project, among these, the University of Leeds was very involved in the deployment of the BAE146, investigators at the University of Wyoming operated the King Air and its cloud radar, the ETL/Miami group led the depolyment of the Seward Johnson, and the group at the University of Illinois was intrumental in initiating the project. Investigators from UCSD and Warsaw University were integral in the study of aerosol processes during RICO and their relation to whole sky imagery.

Workshop Agendas & PDFs: June 2005 | January 2006