6533b833fe1ef96bd129ca2d

RESEARCH PRODUCT

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subject

Atmospheric ScienceIce cloudMaterials science010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciencesIce crystalsCold fingerExtrapolationHolographyPhysics::Optics01 natural scienceslaw.inventionComputational physics010309 opticsCrystallaw0103 physical sciencesIce nucleusSupercooling0105 earth and related environmental sciences

description

Abstract. An ice cloud chamber was developed at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz for generating several thousand data points for mass and sedimentation velocity measurements of ice crystals with sizes less than 150 µm. Ice nucleation was initiated from a cloud of supercooled droplets by local cooling using a liquid nitrogen cold finger. Three-dimensional tracks of ice crystals falling through the slightly supersaturated environment were obtained from the reconstruction of sequential holographic images, automated detection of the crystals in the hologram reconstructions, and particle tracking. Through collection of the crystals and investigation under a microscope before and after melting, crystal mass was determined as a function of size. The experimentally obtained mass versus diameter (m(D)) power law relationship resulted in lower masses for small ice crystals than from commonly adopted parameterizations. Thus, they did not support the currently accepted extrapolation of relationships measured for larger crystal sizes. The relationship between Best (X) and Reynolds (Re) numbers for columnar crystals was found to be X=15.3 Re1.2, which is in general agreement with literature parameterizations.