IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v419y2002i6903d10.1038_nature00983.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Acceleration of rain initiation by cloud turbulence

Author

Listed:
  • G. Falkovich

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • A. Fouxon

    (Weizmann Institute of Science)

  • M. G. Stepanov

    (Weizmann Institute of Science
    Institute of Automation and Electrometry)

Abstract

Vapour condensation in cloud cores produces small droplets that are close to one another in size. Droplets are believed to grow to raindrop size by coalescence due to collision1,2. Air turbulence is thought to be the main cause for collisions of similar-sized droplets exceeding radii of a few micrometres, and therefore rain prediction requires a quantitative description of droplet collision in turbulence1,2,3,4,5. Turbulent vortices act as small centrifuges that spin heavy droplets out, creating concentration inhomogeneities6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14 and jets of droplets, both of which increase the mean collision rate. Here we derive a formula for the collision rate of small heavy particles in a turbulent flow, using a recently developed formalism for tracing random trajectories15,16. We describe an enhancement of inertial effects by turbulence intermittency and an interplay between turbulence and gravity that determines the collision rate. We present a new mechanism, the ‘sling effect’, for collisions due to jets of droplets that become detached from the air flow. We conclude that air turbulence can substantially accelerate the appearance of large droplets that trigger rain.

Suggested Citation

  • G. Falkovich & A. Fouxon & M. G. Stepanov, 2002. "Acceleration of rain initiation by cloud turbulence," Nature, Nature, vol. 419(6903), pages 151-154, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:419:y:2002:i:6903:d:10.1038_nature00983
    DOI: 10.1038/nature00983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature00983
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature00983?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chin-Hyuk Chang & Dae-Kwon Jeong & Dae-Hyeok Kim & Hyun-Cheol Park & Jong-Ho Lee & Man-Yeong Ha & Hyun-Sik Yoon & Min-Il Kim & Seok-Beom Hong, 2023. "Effect of the Slinger Ring on the Forced Convection Heat Transfer in a Window Air Conditioner," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-18, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:419:y:2002:i:6903:d:10.1038_nature00983. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.