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Variability of monsoon intracloud and intercloud microphysics over the Indian subcontinent
Author(s) -
Morwal S. B.,
Brenguier J.L.,
Padma Kumari B.,
Maheskumar R. S.,
Kulkarni J. R.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1002/2015jd023533
Subject(s) - liquid water content , effective radius , cloud fraction , monsoon , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , precipitation , radius , cloud computing , meteorology , physics , cloud cover , astrophysics , computer security , galaxy , computer science , operating system
Intracloud/intercloud variability of microphysical quantities during different monsoon conditions has been studied for the first time over India using in situ observations of cloud microphysics collected during the Cloud‐Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment 2009. The observations for two inland locations (Hyderabad and Bareilly) for different phases of monsoon (preonset, onset, break, and active) have been used to investigate the entrainment and mixing processes which are defined with adiabatic fraction (ADFR) < 0.4 in monsoon clouds. The variation of factor k which is the ratio of cube of cloud droplet mean volume radius ( r v ) to cloud droplet effective radius ( r e ), cloud droplet number concentration ( N ), liquid water content (LWC), and ADFR of LWC has been used to examine the intracloud and intercloud variability of cloud microphysical properties. During the preonset (Hyderabad), clouds were undiluted ( ~ 0.59) with moderate concentration (< N > ~ 436 cm −3 ), an average r e of 8 µm, and high value of factor k (0.774 ± 0.035). During break monsoon (Bareilly), clouds were diluted ( ≤ 0.2) having numerous (< N > > 1000 cm −3 ) smaller droplets ( r e ≤ 6 µm) and a low value of factor k (0.678 ± 0.064). The clouds had similar characteristics ( ~ 0.4 having lesser (< N > ~ 300 cm −3 ) droplets with r e > 8 µm) over both stations during onset/active monsoon conditions. The investigation of the variability of intracloud and intercloud microphysics revealed positive correlation between factor k and N and no detectable correlation between factor k and N , respectively, and are sensitive to ADFR.