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Drizzle correlations with giant nuclei
Author(s) -
Hudson James G.,
Jha Vandana,
Noble Stephen
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2010gl046207
Subject(s) - drizzle , atmospheric sciences , cloud condensation nuclei , aerosol , altitude (triangle) , environmental science , drop (telecommunication) , cloud physics , effects of high altitude on humans , meteorology , seeding , climatology , physics , cloud computing , precipitation , geology , mathematics , telecommunications , geometry , computer science , thermodynamics , operating system
Giant nuclei (GN) concentrations (N GN ) below RICO small cumulus clouds were substantially correlated with drizzle drop concentrations (N d ), especially at higher cloud altitudes. The N GN ‐N d correlation coefficients (R) progressively increased with altitude whereas R for CCN concentrations with N d were negative with mostly decreasing magnitudes at increasing altitudes. These results indicate that the positive influence of GN [or CCN with low critical supersaturations (S c )] on N d is greater than the negative influence of high S c CCN on N d at high cloud altitudes where there are more drizzle drops. This work has implications not only for fundamental cloud physics but also for climate change; i.e., global warming and the indirect aerosol effect as well as geoengineering and hygroscopic cloud seeding.