Biometeorology 2000

Clouds and Precipitation

We are now in the position to look at how clouds and precipitation are formed.
The goals in this section are to examine the details of formation of cloud droplets,
and the processes involved in precipitation.

Cloud Droplets

First we start with the formation of cloud droplets. Recall that small water
droplets cannot occur at the saturation value that was defined over a flat water
surface. In perfectly clean air, it would have to become supersaturated for the
curved surfaces of droplets to exist. However, droplets actually can form in air
before such saturation values are reached. The formation is aided by small
hygroscopic particles called condensation nuclei, which allow water droplets to
form at lower humidity values than would otherwise be required. There are
several sources for these nuclei. Over land, certain small soil mineral particles
are common. These are rather small, as their size is on the order of 0.1 microns.
Over the oceans, larger salt particles are available. These are much larger, and
have sizes around 1 micron.

Suppose that condensation nuclei have resulted in cloud droplets forming

after rising air has reached saturation. How large are these droplets? The size
varies, but a typical value for those that formed from the small soil nuclei is about
10 microns. Why do these not fall to Earth? The answer has to do with their small
size.

There are two forces affecting the droplets. Gravity acts to accelerate to
droplet towards the surface. The size of the force due to gravity is directly
proportional to the mass of the droplet. However, the mass of the droplet is
related to the size of the drop. So the force acting downwards on the cloud
droplet is directly related to the size of the drop. On the other hand, the air exerts
a resistance to the falling droplet. If the force of gravity on the droplet exceeds
the resistance of the air, then it will fall. However, cloud droplets are too small for
this to occur. The resistance of the air keeps the droplets suspended.

In order for a drop to fall to the surface, it must become much larger than 10
microns. How large must it get? It turns out that a size of about 1 mm is required.
Rain drops range from about 1 to 5 mm in size.

Formation of Precipitation

The issue we need to address is how cloud droplets grow to the size
necessary to become precipitation. There are two main processes that can
produce droplets this large. One is most critical in tropical regions, while the other
is dominant in the middle and high latitudes.
Growth of Cloud Droplets

Droplets form by condensation of water vapor in the air onto nuclei. This
condensation will continue, allowing the droplet to slowly grow. Another way to
grow is when one droplet collides with another and the two merge into a larger
droplet. When dropletes run into one another it is called collision. This in itself
does not cause any growth. But if they merge after the collision, this produces
one larger droplet. This process is termed coalescence. By continuing to collide
and merging with other droplets, the growth rate can increase rapidly.

The critical steps here are condensation of water vapor onto the droplet,
collision of droplets, and coalescence of droplets into larger drops.

We can now examine the mechanisms that act to produce precipitation in

clouds. It turns out that there are two different sets of processes. We will start
with the most simple case. This occurs in clouds where the temperature is above
0 C. These are defined as warm clouds. Especially in tropical regions, the
nuclei in such clouds are quite large. They are often salt particles. As a result,
droplets start their life much larger than those forming from small nuclei. It is
possible under these conditions for droplets to reach adequate size by the
processes of condensation, collision and coalescence, to become rain drops.

The above process can only produce raindrops if several conditions are
present. The initial cloud droplets must be large enough, and the cloud must be
tall enough to allow the drops to reach 1 mm. This is most likely in tropical
regions. Here the large salt nuclei result in some cloud droplets much larger
size. In addition, moist tropical regions often have very tall clouds. These are
needed so that the falling drops can grow to a large enough size. A diagram
depicting the process is shown below.
 In the middle and high latitudes the nuclei and subsequent cloud droplets are
small. In addition, there is less moisture available and clouds are often smaller.
As a result, the first mechanism is not going to be effective in these regions.
There must be another way for precipitation to form. In this case we consider a
different set of processes. These will occur clouds where at least some portion
has temperatures below 0 C. These are called cold clouds. The process that
makes precipitation in these clouds involves supercooled water and ice crystals.
 When liquid water drops are suspended in clean air and do not make contact
with any solid objects, they will not freeze when the temperature falls below 0 C.
They will remain as liquid in a supercooled state. In perfectly clean air the
droplets would not freeze until they reached –40 C. Soon we will see that air is
not perfectly clean, and certain particles allow freezing to occur earlier. But for
now, note that supercooled droplets will exist in any clouds where the
temperature has fallen below 0 C.

An important property to note at this point is the difference in saturation vapor

pressure over supercooled water and ice. Suppose we considered two simple
systems of enclosed supercooled water and ice at the same temperature, as
shown below.
 The structure of ice is very different from liquid water. The lattice structure of
ice means that water molecules are more strongly held in the ice compared to
liquid. As a result, more kinetic energy is required for water to escape from ice
into vapor, as compared to transitioning from liquid to vapor. At any given
temperature more liquid molecules than ice molecules can escape into water
vapor. This means that the amount of water vapor existing at saturation will be
larger over the liquid surface. Put another way, the saturation vapor pressure will
be greater over liquid water than ice at the same temperature.

Now let us return to supercooled water droplets in a cold cloud. Earlier we

noted that in perfectly clean air they would not spontaneously freeze until –40 C.
However, it turns out that there are special particles present that will allow the
supercooled droplets to freeze at much higher temperatures. There are small
particles called freezing nuclei, that occur naturally in the atmosphere. These
particles generally come from the soil, and are not the same as condensation
nuclei. When freezing nuclei come into contact with supercooled droplets they
cause them to freeze. Depending on the nuclei, the temperature at which
freezing will occur is variable. But it is always much warmer than –40 C. Some
typical values might be –5 C to –15 C. This is the main way that ice crystals are
formed in cold clouds.

Once ice crystals are introduced in a cloud of supercooled water droplets

there is a new mechanism available to produce precipitation. There are now ice
crystals and supercooled droplets in the cloud. The air is saturated with respect
to the water droplets, but supersaturated with respect to the ice crystals. This is
because, as discussed above, the saturation vapor pressure over liquid water is
greater than that over ice at the same temperature.
 Since the air is more than saturated with respect to the ice crystal, then the
water vapor in the air will tend to condense on the ice crystal rather than on the
droplets. So the ice crystal will grow rapidly from this condensation, at the
expense of the supercooled droplets, which will begin to evaporate into the air.
This kind of growth is called the Bergeron Process, named after the scientist
who discovered it. The growing ice crystal will eventually fall and collide with
supercooled water droplets, causing them to freeze and become part of the
growing mass. This is called riming or accretion. Collisions with other crystals
can also occur which enlarge the ice crystal, and are termed aggregation.
Eventually the crystals grow large enough to become precipitation. If the lower
layers of air are cold enough, they reach the ground as snowflakes. If the air is
too warm, they melt to become rain.

This process of producing precipitation can occur in cold clouds. Such clouds
can exist anywhere on Earth, since even in the tropics tall enough clouds will
have regions below 0 C. So this process for making precipitation can occur
anywhere on Earth, but is the only process making precipitation in the middle and
high latitudes.

A summary of the key points involved with cloud formation follows:

We can also list a summary of the key issues related to precipitation.
Forms of Precipitation

There are several forms of precipitation, each with a different name. When it
reaches the surface as drops of liquid water it is called rain. Very light rain is
sometimes called drizzle. When it falls as ice crystals it is simply called snow. If
the falling ice crystals partially melt and form soft ice pellets, it is termed graupel.
Raindrops that freeze while falling through colder air reach the surface as frozen
drops called sleet. We will discuss thunderstorms later, but for now simply note
that they are often characterized by having zones of strong rising motion. Falling
precipitation can be cycled up and down a number of times by these updrafts,
adding a layer of ice during each journey. The result is balls of ice with a number
of layers called hail. Finally, when there is a warm layer of air above a cold layer
near the surface, the rain can fall to the surface and freeze upon contact. This is
freezing rain, and it creates a layer of ice on all surfaces. These are the main
varieties of precipitation.