Physics Commons^™

Scaling Of Drizzle Virga Depth With Cloud Thickness For Marine Stratocumulus Clouds, Fan Yang, Edward P. Luke, Pavlos Kollias, Alexander Kostinski, Andrew M. Vogelmann

Department of Physics Publications

Drizzle is frequently observed in marine stratocumulus clouds and plays a crucial role in cloud lifetime and the radiation budget. Most drizzling stratocumulus clouds form drizzle virga below cloud base, where subcloud scavenging and evaporative cooling are important. We use unique ground‐based cloud radar observations (1) to examine the statistical properties of drizzle frequency and virga depth and (2) to test a simple analytical relationship derived between drizzle virga thickness (H_v) and cloud thickness (H_c). Observations show that 83% of marine stratocumulus clouds are drizzling although only 31% generate surface precipitation. The analytical expression …