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Department of Physics Publications

Cloud droplets

Publication Year

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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Cloud Droplets To Drizzle: Contribution Of Transition Drops To Microphysical And Optical Properties Of Marine Stratocumulus Clouds, S Glienke, A. Kostinski, J P. Fugal, R. A. Shaw, S Borrmann, J Stith Aug 2017

Cloud Droplets To Drizzle: Contribution Of Transition Drops To Microphysical And Optical Properties Of Marine Stratocumulus Clouds, S Glienke, A. Kostinski, J P. Fugal, R. A. Shaw, S Borrmann, J Stith

Department of Physics Publications

Aircraft measurements of the ubiquitous marine stratocumulus cloud type, with over 3000 km of in situ data from the Pacific during the Cloud System Evolution in the Trades experiment, show the ability of the Holographic Detector for Clouds (HOLODEC) instrument to smoothly interpolate the small and large droplet data collected with Cloud Droplet Probe and 2DC instruments. The combined, comprehensive instrument suite reveals a surprisingly large contribution in the predrizzle size range of 40–80 μm (transition droplets, or drizzlets), a range typically not measured and assumed to reside in a condensation‐to‐collision minimum between cloud droplet and drizzle modes. Besides shedding …


Entropic Aspects Of Supercooled Droplet Freezing, Alexander Kostinski, Will Cantrell Sep 2008

Entropic Aspects Of Supercooled Droplet Freezing, Alexander Kostinski, Will Cantrell

Department of Physics Publications

The freezing of supercooled water droplets in the atmosphere, with an emphasis on the entropic aspects of the problem, is examined. Supercooled water is a metastable state and, therefore, the associated phase transition must be irreversible. Temperature-dependent heat capacities of supercooled water and ice are used to calculate the entropy difference. That difference is then used to establish a lower bound on the amount of latent heat that can be liberated by the freezing droplets. The calculation is compared with tabulated values of the latent heat of fusion with surprising results. Based on a novel physical picture of the freezing …