Are turbulence effects on droplet collision-coalescence a key to understanding observed rain formation in clouds?

ABSTRACT: Rain formation is a critical factor governing the lifecycle and radiative forcing of clouds and therefore it is a key element of weather and climate. Cloud microphysics-turbulence interactions occur across a wide range of scales and are challenging to represent in atmospheric models with limited resolution. Based on past experiments and idealized numerical simulations, it has been postulated that cloud turbulence accelerates rain formation by enhancing drop collision-coalescence. We provide substantial evidence for significant impacts of turbulence on the evolution of cloud droplet size distributions and rain formation by comparing high-resolution observations of cumulus congestus clouds with state-of-the-art large-eddy simulations coupled with a Lagrangian particle-based microphysics sche

SUBMITTER: Chandrakar KK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11228503 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature