What defines the bottom of a cloud, Liftin Condensation Level

What defines the top of the cloud: equilibrium

What defines how deep the cloud is CAPE: SIN
Convective concersion
Driving force behind CAPE = Latent heat release.
Condensation and freezing within the clouds:
Aerosol is liquid or solid suspension in the air.
Ultrafine aerosol sources:
Sulphur will oxidise to sulphurdioxide.
Volatile organic carbons
Primary Ogranic Aerosols.
Black carbon can be quite hydrophilic
Sulphuric acid insanely hydrophilic.
Particles will grow and once they get to a certain radius, they
CCN cloud condensation nuclei, once activated they can become clouds.
Climate change: warming atmosphere, narrowing of the tropical ocean
rainfall regions.
Less low clouds, more polar clouds.
Strange cloud slide..
Aerosols, multiple possibilities
Aerosols scatter sunlight, so that less sunshine will reach the earth
surface.
Aerosols can also absorb radiation, can create a local heating, which
causes cooling below
At the large scale, there is net warming of the surface and atmosphere,
because the atmospheric circulation and mixing processesrredistributes
thermal energy.
On the whole, aerosols are cooling!
Once aerosols go into clouds, aerosols serve as condensation nuclei,
where liquid dropletscan form.
More aerosols result in a larger concentration of smaller droplets leading
to a brighter cloud. Much less likely to precipitate, because the droplets
are smaller.
Opposite of cloud seeding
When air becomes supersaturated RH>100%, condernsation of small

droplets should occur.

Water vapour come together in chance collisions,
Homogeneous nucleation, no aerosols involved, ulkikely
Minimum size for a droplet to be, is defined by the balance between
surface tension (small droplet has high surface tension)
Latent heat release is dependent on how much water is in the droplet.
Energy needed to create surface tension,
E surface tension is evenredig to area of droplet 4pir2
E laten is evenredig aan 4/3 pi r3 T ln e/es
If Elatent > Esurface then droplets can form.
Necessary condition is e > es (RH > 100%)
At small raddi, r3 is much smaller than r2.
E latent is low, and droplet is unlikely to form.
There is a critical radius, (r min)) where E latent.
Homogeneous nucleation will need molecular collisuo much smaller than
0.01 micrometer, requiring an enormous amount of supersaturation
(above 300%), this just does not happen.
MEANS THAT HOMOGENEOUS NUCLEATION DOESNT HAPPEN.
Many sources of aerosols, biological, solid earth, anthropogenic,
Can be associated with allergies and pollution
CCN: small subset of aerosols that act as particles upon which water
vapour condenses
Aerosol precursor: potential aerosols
Some gases are important on the 20 year time scale, but noton the
hundred year time scale.
Till about .1 of a micron, we start to see the microns, and start to have a
scattering effect.
Atiken nuclei, is a nuclei that has just been formed, and is growing.
Giant particles are big enough to fall.
Sulphate aerosols are always cool,
Sulphur Iodide, Sometimes Sodium chloride. Lots of water in the cloud,
and encourage it to rain over a certain region.
Heterogenous nucleation is the only way to get cloud formation.

Dont need it to be supersaturated, about 1%, as long as there are some

aerosols around, cloud will definitely form.
Different CCN influence droplet size and concentrations.
whiter brighter clouds on land, because of smaller droplets.
In Marine we get fewer, big droplets.
Types of clouds: warm clouds, not gotten to melting level.
If you go below 0 degrees, supercooled liquid water, and ice formation
If to very low, -40, ice (glaciated) will be formed up high, above the one
above.
Ice takes longer to sublimate, resulting in wispy boundaries.
Wispy (stretched) boundaries point at ice clouds,
Warm cliuds: where the temperature is bove 0 degrees.
Cloud droplets grow through condensation, diffusional growth and
collisions, to form larger precipitation drops.
At low pressures, at some temperature, sublimation can happen

AFTER BREAK:
Couple ways how droplets grow, condensation is one of those.
While droplet is smaller than 0l.1 mm, it has negligible fall speed, so it
remains suspended.
It starts raining when the drag with air due to gravity is overcome.
DRAG (friction with air) = acceleration due to gravity, terminal velocity is
constnt.
Downward force needs to overcome the friction of forming, depends on
viscosity of the air.
Upward forces: Total friction= Archimedes buoyancy due to air mass
displaced plus drag force)
mu = dynamic viscosity of air.
Terminal velocity is generally proportional to radius of droplet.
Droplets are not spherical, but that is assumed.
Terminal velocity has many formulas, it is determined by which radius
were in, which one we use.

Reynolds number is the ratio of inertia forces to viscous forces.

During fall of the rain in cloud, it will bump into other water molecules,
this is called: collision or coalescence, limited how much growth this gives,
because scattering can also happen, especially with wind.
Condensation and collision are both needed for raindroplets to be formed.
Drop size distribution changes over time, newly formed cloud will have
many small droplets, and eventually, this will get larger until it is rain size.
typical shape of rain drops.
Tear shape, larger droplets are gonna be virtually squashed.
Sometimes parachute forms form.
When drag exceeds surface tension, droplets will shatter.
Parachute forms small drops,
Toroid form big ones.
COLD CLOUDES. With cold clouds, ice will form. All the liquid is taken.
Homogeneous freezing of supercooled drops until about -40 for drops of
10 micrometer. Colder than -40, always ice.
Between 0 and 40, with aerosols present, there will be a mixed fase.
Heterogenous freezing: supercooled drops in contact with foreign particle,
then ice Nuclei ill form between 0 and 40.
In some slide it can be seen that any droplet, above -40 needs a foreign
particle.
How quickly go from liquid to ice cloud is explained by the Bergeron
effect.
Some processes from vapour phase onto pre existing ice particle.
Riming is the keyformation of hail.
When riming happens so much that you cant determine the original
shape its called Graupal.
Graupal is smaller than hail and occurs with cold rain.
3 Growth by aggregation.
Similar to growth by collision
Temperature and moisture profile determine what type of precipitation:
Rain,
Snow,
Hail/Graupel

Rain from melted ice (cold rain)

Rain of supercooled water (freezing rain)
Virga
Nowcast, 0 to 6 hours:
Data driven; radr, lightning and surfcce observations.
Thunderstorm identification:
Cloud seeding: Introduction of large particles to act as CCN
(either sodiumchlodide or sulphuriodide.
Likes to take up water and produce large drops.
If too much is added, precipitation is suppressed
Radar: is a reflection of radiowaves, liquid is more reflective than ice.
Insects are also good reflectors. Insects in the skies!
Polarisation, size distribution of droplets can be obtained.
With horizontal and vertical one, you can calculate wether they are big or
small ro whatever.
Doppler radar, is another method of measuring. It measures the speed of
the droplets that are falling.
Measures the speed of the movement of the reflecting pertical as well.
Measure change in pace of returning signal.