Identification

Title

Secondary ice production by fragmentation of freezing drops: Formulation and theory

Abstract

A numerical formulation is provided for secondary ice production during fragmentation of freezing raindrops or drizzle. This is obtained by pooling laboratory observations from published studies and considering the physics of collisions. There are two modes of the scheme: fragmentation during spherical drop freezing (mode 1) and during collisions of supercooled raindrops with more massive ice (mode 2). The empirical scheme is for atmospheric models. Microphysical simulations with a parcel model of fast ascent (8 m s(-1)) between -10 degrees and -20 degrees C are validated against aircraft observations of tropical maritime deep convection. Ice enhancement by an order of magnitude is predicted from inclusion of raindrop-freezing fragmentation, as observed. The Hallett-Mossop (HM) process was active too. Both secondary ice mechanisms (HM and raindrop freezing) are accelerated by a positive feedback involving collisional raindrop freezing. An energy-based theory is proposed explaining the laboratory observations of mode 1, both of approximate proportionality between drop size and fragment numbers and of their thermal peak. To illustrate the behavior of the scheme in both modes, the glaciation of idealized monodisperse populations of drops is elucidated with an analytical zero-dimensional (0D) theory treating the freezing in drop-ice collisions by a positive feedback of fragmentation. When drops are too few or too small (<<1 mm), especially at temperatures far from -15 degrees C (mode 1), there is little raindrop-freezing fragmentation on realistic time scales of natural clouds, but otherwise, high ice enhancement (IE) ratios of up to 100-1000 are possible. Theoretical formulas for the glaciation time of such drop populations, and their maximum and initial growth rates of IE ratio, are proposed.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d77s7rnh

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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Temporal reference

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Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-09-01T00:00:00Z

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Conformity

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version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

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