Data for the publication: "Seeding of Supercooled Low Stratus Clouds with a UAV to Study Microphysical Ice Processes": An Introduction to the CLOUDLAB Project

However, the initial formation and growth of ice crystals are challenging to study in the real atmosphere resulting in uncertainties in weather forecasts and climate projections. The CLOUDLAB project tackles this problem by using supercooled stratus clouds as a natural laboratory for targeted glaciogenic cloud seeding to advance the understanding of ice processes: Ice nucleating particles are injected from an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) into supercooled stratus clouds to induce ice crystal formation and subsequent growth processes.

Microphysical changes induced by seeding are measured 3–15 min downstream of the seeding location using in situ and ground-based remote sensing instrumentation. The novel application of seeding with a multirotor UAV combined with the persistent nature of stratus clouds enables repeated seeding experiments under similar and well-constrained initial conditions. This article describes the scientific goals, experimental design, and first results of CLOUDLAB.