SUMMARYIn this, the first of two related papers, we present calculations of the growth of a population of condensate droplets rising above cloud base within small cumuli which are entraining undersaturated environmental air. It is assumed, on the basis of dimensional arguments and laboratory experiments on entrainment, conducted within a cloud droplet evolution tunnel, that this mixing process is inhomogeneous.In the extreme situation to which the calculations apply undersaturated air is entrained in a stream, or in blobs, and some droplets of all sizes are completely removed from the condensate spectrum byevaporation, while others do not change in size. This is equivalent to assuming that the time constant for turbulent mixing (tT) is large relative to that for droplet evaporation (G), and is thus the antithesis to the homogeneous model utilized by other workers, which assumes implicitly that t & , = 0.The calculations based on the extreme inhomogeneous model produce spectral shapes which agree well with those reported in cumulus by Warner (1969a) and indicate that a small proportion of the droplets can grow several times faster through the condensate spectrum than classical theory predicts.
SummaryThe maximum measured electric fields in thunderclouds are an order of magnitude less than the fields required for electric breakdown of the air. One explanation for lightning initiation in these low fields is that electric breakdown first occurs at the surfaces of raindrops where the ambient field is enhanced very locally due to the drop geometry . Laboratory experiments [Crabb & Latham, 1974] indicate that colliding raindrops which coalesce to form elongated water filaments can produce positive corona in ambient fields close to those measured in thunderclouds. We calculate the E-field distribution around a simulated coalesced drop pair and use a numerical model to study the positive corona mechanisms in detail. Our results give good agreement with the laboratory observations. At the altitudes (and thus low pressures) at which lightning initiation is observed, our results show that positive corona can occur at observed in-cloud E-fields.
SUMMARYA model is presented of the turbulent mixing between a sphere of droplet-free air (saturated or undersaturated) and a spherical volume of cloud within which it is embedded. The rates of equalization of supersaturation, temperature and liquid water are examined as functions of the turbulent energy dissipation rate, the dimensions of the interacting volumes, the drop-size distribution in the cloud and other parameters. Spectral changes resulting from the mixing conform closely with those predicted by the recent inhomogeneous or dilution-only descriptions of mixing (Baker et ol.
1980; Telford and Chai 1980).It is shown that spectral changes observed during entrainment into shallow cumulus, stratocumulus and cap clouds are in good agreement with those predicted on the basis of this diffusive model.Calculations of mixing in the presence of an updraught yield size-distributions (including bimodal spectra) similar to those observed in natural clouds.Calculations of mixing during descent from cloud-top suggest that regions of substantial undersaturation may exist in the deep interiors of clouds which are entraining environmental air at their summits. Crude estimates of the degree of lateral spreading produced by turbulence as this descent proceeds indicates that significant horizontal structure in the water properties may exist throughout a substantial fraction of the cloud-depth.
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