Twenty Years of Airborne Water Vapor and Total Water Measurements of a Diode Laser Based Photoacoustic Instruments
We present relevant issues collected over twenty years of development and operation of an airborne water vapour / total water detector based on photoacoustic spectroscopy. The WaSulHygro instrument possesses high selectivity, short response time, and wide dynamic range, that are key requirements against trace gas measurement systems for applications in atmospheric sciences. Besides the major properties of WaSul-Hygro we discuss our efforts to develop a robust instruments that have proved its long-term reliability over the last fifteen years operating on-board a commercial aircraft within the framework of the CARIBIC project.2
Drop Shapes and Axis Ratio Distributions: Comparison between 2D Video Disdrometer and Wind-Tunnel Measurements
Abstract Comparisons of drop shapes between measurements made using 2D video disdrometer (2DVD) and wind-tunnel experiments are presented. Comparisons are made in terms of the mean drop shapes and the axis ratio distributions. Very close agreement of the mean shapes is seen between the two sets of measurements; the same applies to the mean axis ratio versus drop diameter. Also, in both sets of measurements, an increase in the oscillation amplitudes with increasing drop diameter is observed. In the case of the 2DVD, a small increase in the skewness was also detected. Given that the two sets of measurements were conducted in very different conditions, the agreement between the two sets of dat…
A comprehensive characterization of ice nucleation by three different types of cellulose particles immersed in water: lessons learned and future research directions
We present the laboratory results of immersion freezing efficiencies of cellulose particles at supercooled temperature (T) conditions. Three types of chemically homogeneous cellulose samples are used as surrogates that represent supermicron and submicron ice nucleating plant structural polymers. These samples include micro-crystalline cellulose (MCC), fibrous cellulose (FC) and nano-crystalline cellulose (NCC). Our experimental data show that particles resembling the MCC lab particle occur also in the atmosphere. Our immersion freezing dataset includes data from various ice nucleation measurement techniques available at seventeen different institutions, including nine dry dispersion and ele…
Airborne measurements of the nitric acid partitioning in persistent contrails
This study reports the first systematic measurements of nitric acid (HNO3) uptake in contrail ice particles at typical aircraft cruise altitudes. During the CIRRUS-III campaign cirrus clouds and almost 40 persistent contrails were probed with in situ instruments over Germany and Northern Europe in November 2006. Besides reactive nitrogen, water vapor, cloud ice water content, ice particle size distributions, and condensation nuclei were measured during 6 flights. Contrails with ages up to 12 h were detected at altitudes 10–11.5 km and temperatures 211–220 K. These contrails had a larger ice phase fraction of total nitric acid (HNO3ice/HNO3tot = 6%) than the ambient cirrus layers (3%). On av…
Shapes and oscillations of raindrops with reduced surface tensions: Measurements at the Mainz vertical wind tunnel
Abstract Important characteristics of raindrops pertinent to fields in atmospheric sciences such as weather radar or pollution scavenging are drop shape, oscillation frequency and amplitude, as well as the internal circulation. Atmospheric raindrops are never pure water drops but contain additional components like aerosol particles and dissolved species. Surface active substances, when present, reduce the surface tension of raindrops and, thus, increase the drop deformation which in turn affects breakup and coalescence, pollutant scavenging, and, finally, the formation of precipitation. Experiments were performed at the Mainz vertical wind tunnel with raindrops freely suspended at their ter…
A Comprehensive Observational Study of Graupel and Hail Terminal Velocity, Mass Flux, and Kinetic Energy
Abstract This study uses novel approaches to estimate the fall characteristics of hail, covering a size range from about 0.5 to 7 cm, and the drag coefficients of lump and conical graupel. Three-dimensional (3D) volume scans of 60 hailstones of sizes from 2.5 to 6.7 cm were printed in three dimensions using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic, and their terminal velocities were measured in the Mainz, Germany, vertical wind tunnel. To simulate lump graupel, 40 of the hailstones were printed with maximum dimensions of about 0.2, 0.3, and 0.5 cm, and their terminal velocities were measured. Conical graupel, whose three dimensions (maximum dimension 0.1–1 cm) were estimated from an an…
Wind tunnel study on the size distribution of droplets after collision induced breakup of levitating water drops
Abstract Wind tunnel experiments on collisions between drop pairs of 2.5 and 0.5 mm diameter have been performed and the coalescence and breakup events have been recorded by a high-speed digital camera. From the comprehensive analysis of the captured images, the most important parameters utilized in numerical models, such as coalescence efficiency, breakup type, number of fragments and fragment size distribution after breakup were determined. The experimentally obtained parameters have been compared to parameterizations based on earlier laboratory studies of Low and List, and on direct numerical simulations. A very good agreement between experimental results and parameterizations has been f…
The Effect of Turbulence on the Accretional Growth of Graupel
Abstract Wind tunnel experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of turbulence on the collection kernel of graupel. The collection kernel defines the growth rate of a graupel accreting supercooled droplets as it falls through a cloud. The ambient conditions were similar to those occurring typically in the mixed-phase zone of convective clouds, that is, at temperatures between −7° and −16°C and with liquid water contents from 0.5 to 1.3 g m−3. Tethered spherical collectors with radii between 220 and 340 μm were exposed in a flow carrying supercooled droplets with a mean volume radius of 10 μm. The vertical root-mean-square fluctuation velocity, the dissipation rate, and the Tay…
Comparative study on immersion freezing utilizing single-droplet levitation methods
Immersion freezing experiments were performed utilizing two distinct single-droplet levitation methods. In the Mainz vertical wind tunnel, supercooled droplets of 700 µm diameter were freely floated in a vertical airstream at constant temperatures ranging from −5 to −30 ∘C, where heterogeneous freezing takes place. These investigations under isothermal conditions allow the application of the stochastic approach to analyze and interpret the results in terms of the freezing or nucleation rate. In the Mainz acoustic levitator, 2 mm diameter drops were levitated while their temperature was continuously cooling from +20 to −28 ∘C by adapting to the ambient temperature. Therefore, in this case th…
A wind tunnel study of the effects of collision processes on the shape and oscillation for moderate-size raindrops
Abstract Drop–drop collision experiments were carried out at the Mainz vertical wind tunnel. Water drops of 2.5 mm diameter were freely floated at their terminal velocities in a vertical air stream and collided with 0.5 mm diameter droplets. The collisions were recorded with a high speed digital video camera at a frame rate of 1000 per second. Altogether 116 collision events were observed, 75 of which ended with coalescence, and the rest with filament type breakup. The coalescence efficiency and its dependence on the Weber number and on the eccentricity of the colliding drops showed good agreement with earlier numerical studies. Thirty-six recorded collisions were further analyzed in order …