Abstract
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS,
VOL. 33,
L19810,
5 PP., 2006
doi:10.1029/2006GL026841
Observations of the width of cloud droplet spectra in stratocumulus
Institute of Geophysics, Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques, Meteo-France, Toulouse, France
This paper discusses in-situ aircraft observations of cloud microphysics in eight cases of marine stratocumulus investigated
during the Second Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE2) in the eastern subtropical Atlantic. The emphasis is on the spectral
width of cloud droplet spectra, an important parameter affecting radiative properties of clouds and the development of drizzle
and rain. For a given flight (i.e., for given characteristics of the cloud condensation nuclei, CCN), local droplet concentration
varies considerably. The standard deviation of the cloud droplet spectra, σ, is typically in the range of 1 to 2 μm. It does not vary systematically between maritime and polluted clouds, and shows a surprisingly small difference between
near-adiabatic and diluted cloud samples. The relative dispersion d, the ratio between σ and the mean radius
is between 0.1 and 0.4. In agreement with previous studies, larger values are typically associated with polluted clouds,
mostly because such clouds have smaller droplets. For all flights, d either decreases with height or does not change significantly. Based on these observations, a simple parameterization of
the relative dispersion d is proposed.
Received 8 May 2006; accepted 30 August 2006; published 7 October 2006.
Citation: (2006), Observations of the width of cloud droplet spectra in stratocumulus, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L19810, doi:10.1029/2006GL026841.
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