• Featured in Physics
  • Editors' Suggestion

Can Hail and Rain Nucleate Cloud Droplets?

Prasanth Prabhakaran, Stephan Weiss, Alexei Krekhov, Alain Pumir, and Eberhard Bodenschatz
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 128701 – Published 22 September 2017
Physics logo See Focus story: Drops Falling in Clouds Make More Drops
PDFHTMLExport Citation

Abstract

We present results from moist convection in a mixture of pressurized sulfur hexafluoride (liquid and vapor), and helium (gas) to model the wet and dry components of the Earth’s atmosphere. To allow for homogeneous nucleation, we operate the experiment close to critical conditions. We report on the nucleation of microdroplets in the wake of large cold liquid drops falling through the supersaturated atmosphere and show that the homogeneous nucleation is caused by isobaric cooling of the saturated sulfur hexafluoride vapor. Our results carry over to atmospheric clouds: falling hail and cold rain drops may enhance the heterogeneous nucleation of microdroplets in their wake under supersaturated atmospheric conditions. We also observed that under appropriate circumstances settling microdroplets form a rather stable horizontal cloud layer, which separates regions of super- and subcritical saturation.

  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Received 29 May 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.128701

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Fluid DynamicsInterdisciplinary PhysicsCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Focus

Key Image

Drops Falling in Clouds Make More Drops

Published 22 September 2017

Experiments with a simplified version of the atmosphere show that falling drops seed many smaller droplets in their wake.

See more in Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Prasanth Prabhakaran2, Stephan Weiss1, Alexei Krekhov1, Alain Pumir3,1, and Eberhard Bodenschatz1

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
  • 2Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
  • 3Laboratoire de Physique, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Université de Lyon 1 and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 69007 Lyon, France
  • 4Laboratory of Atomic and Solid-State Physics and Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA

  • *Corresponding author. eberhard.bodenschatz@ds.mpg.de
  • Corresponding author. prasanth.prabhakaran@ds.mpg.de

Article Text (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand

Supplemental Material (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand

References (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand
Issue

Vol. 119, Iss. 12 — 22 September 2017

Reuse & Permissions
Access Options

Authorization Required


×
×

Images

×

Sign up to receive regular email alerts from Physical Review Letters

Log In

Cancel
×

Search


Article Lookup

Paste a citation or DOI

Enter a citation
×