And ice clouds

Collection of supercooled liquid water in clouds is simple, using only a plate or screen exposed to RAM air the water is later melted and stored prior to analysis (6 ). Collection of frozen cloud particles is a little more problematical since the liquid water content can be low, and individual particles are more subject to bounce-off during impactive collection. Collection of snow particles aboard the aircraft is most difficult of all due to the low aerodynamic diameter exhibited by these particles in RAM air streams. Successful methods for the collection of snow and ice clouds are still in an active stage of development. 

Caltech unified GCM (Global) Bulk liquid and ice in both stratiform and subgrid convective clouds Diagnosed from predicted cloud water content single size distribution constant cloud droplet number based on observations None None Simulated based on MIE theory with different parametrizations for liquid and ice clouds... 

Mixed-phase cloud processes A variety of mixed-phase and ice cloud models exist, describing the homogeneous and heterogeneous formation of water droplets and ice crystals. The implications of aerosol particles on mixed-phase clouds may be evaluated if their ice nucleating properties are known. 

FIGURE 17.26 Average frequencies of appearance of supercooled water, mixed phase, and ice clouds as a function of temperature in layer clouds over Russia (Boronikov et al. 1963). 

Fig. 9.2. The excellent crystallographic matching between silver iodide and ice makes silver iodide a very potent nucleating agent for ice crystals. When clouds at sub-zero temperatures are seeded with Agl dust, spectacular rainfall occurs.

The portion of the incoming radiation reflected and scattered back to space is the albedo. The albedo of clouds, snow, and ice-covered surfaces... 

The stratosphere is very dry clouds do not form at lower latitudes because the temperature is not low enough. However, the stratosphere over Antarctica is distinctive the temperature can drop to below -90 Celsius during the winter and spring months, leading to the condensation of water vapor and nitric acid vapor, that is, to the formation of ice clouds (polar stratospheric clouds or PSCs). 

In addition to biogeochemical cycles (discussed in Section 6.5), the hydrosphere is a major component of many physical cycles, with climate among the most prominent. Water affects the solar radiation budget through albedo (primarily clouds and ice/snow), the terrestrial radiation budget as a strong absorber of terrestrial emissions, and global temperature distribution as the primary transporter of heat in the ocean and atmosphere. 

Five components of the hydrosphere play major roles in climate feedbacks - atmospheric moisture, clouds, snow and ice, land surface, and oceans. Changes to the hydrologic cycle, among other things, as a result of altered climate conditions are then referred to as responses. Interactions with climate can best be explored by examirung potential response to a climate perturbation, in this case, predicted global warming. 

Another family of feedbacks arises because the radical differences in the albedo (reflectivity) of ice, snow, and clouds compared to the rest of the planetary surface, which causes a loss of the absorption of solar radiation and thereby cools the planet. Indeed, the high albedo of snow and ice cover may be a factor that hastens the transition into ice ages once they have been initiated. Of course, the opposite holds due to decreasing albedo at the end of an ice age. As simple as this concept may appear to be, the cloud-albedo feedback is not easy to quantify because clouds reflect solar radiation (albedo effect) but absorb... 

Since feedbacks may have a large potential for control of albedo and therefore temperature, it seems necessary to highlight them as targets for study and research. Besides the simple example above of cloud area or cloud extent, there are others that can be identified. High-altitude ice clouds, for example, (cirrus) have both an albedo effect and a greenhouse effect. Their occurrence is very sensitive to the amount of water vapor in the upper troposphere and to the thermal structure of the atmosphere. There may also be missing feedbacks. 

The albedo of earth surface varies from about 0.1 for the oceans to 0.6-0.9 for ice and clouds which mean the clouds, snow and ice are good radiation reflectors while liquid water is not. In fact, snow and ice have the highest albedos of any parts of the earth s surface Some parts of Antarctic reflect up to 90% of incoming solar radiation. 

Significant economies of computation are possible in systems that consist of a one-dimensional chain of identical reservoirs. Chapter 7 describes such a system in which there is just one dependent variable. An illustrative example is the climate system and the calculation of zonally averaged temperature as a function of latitude in an energy balance climate model. In such a model, the surface temperature depends on the balance among solar radiation absorbed, planetary radiation emitted to space, and the transport of energy between latitudes. I present routines that calculate the absorption and reflection of incident solar radiation and the emission of long-wave planetary radiation. I show how much of the computational work can be avoided in a system like this because each reservoir is coupled only to its adjacent reservoirs. I use the simulation to explore the sensitivity of seasonally varying temperatures to such aspects of the climate system as snow and ice cover, cloud cover, amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and land distribution. 

I use the seasonal simulation to explore the sensitivity of this energy balance climate model to such features of the climate system as permanent ice and snow at high latitudes, seasonal ice and snow, cloud cover, carbon dioxide amount, and the distribution of the continents. 

Particles and gases in the earth s atmosphere absorb about 25% of this energy and 25% is reflected back to space by the atmosphere, mostly from clouds. About 5% of the incoming solar radiation is reflected back to space from the surface of the earth, mostly from bright regions such as deserts and ice fields. A 1-square-meter surface (39 inches by 39 inches), placed above the atmosphere will collect about 1,370 watts of radiant... 

O Water covers about 71 percent of the surface of the earth. Most of it is in the oceans and ice at the North and South Poles, but water is also in clouds, rain, rivers, lakes, and in underground aquifers. 

By water we were born, and by its disappearance we shall perish. Eor water maintains one of the most powerful control mechanisms we know. The Earth seen from space is a blue planet scattered with cloud. The cloudy whiteness of the Earth s face is as vital as its aquatic blue. Cloud cover and ice layers are effective regulators in the short term, but the Earth s main thermostat resides in the relation between carbon dioxide and global surface temperature. 

Sassen, K., and K. N. Liou, 1979. Scattering of polarized laser light by water droplet, mixed-phase and ice crystal clouds Part I. Angular scattering patterns, J. Atmos. Sci., 36, 838-852. 

In this chapter we will consider the cosmochemistry of ice-bearing planetesimals. We will focus first on comets, because more is known about their chemistry than of the compositions of objects still in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. We will then explore asteroids whose ices melted long ago, and we will briefly consider some larger icy bodies, now represented by satellites of the giant planets. The importance of ice-bearing planetesimals to cosmochemistry stems from their primitive compositions, which have remained largely unchanged because of hibernation in a frozen state. 

Although planetesimals that formed beyond the snowline are composed of relatively primitive materials (chondritic solids and ices), their compositions are variable. That should not be surprising, because objects now in the asteroid belt, the Kuiper belt, and the Oort cloud formed in different parts of the outer solar system and were assembled at different temperatures. In a systematic study of the spectra of 41 comets, A Heam el al. (1995) recognized two compositional groups, one depleted in carbon-chain (C2 and C3) compounds and the other undepleted (Fig. 12.18). NH compounds in the same comets show no discemable trend. The depleted group represents comets derived from the Kuiper belt, whereas the undepleted group consists of Oort cloud comets. 

Although comets are not expected to have experienced the thermal processing that asteroids have, some of the larger KBOs and Oort cloud objects may have been heated by decay of radionuclides. The relative proportions of rock and ice may determine the amount of heating, as radionuclides occur in the rock fraction. Comets and asteroids may have had similar impact histories, and many of these bodies may now be collisional fragments. 

A particular, and unusual, atmospheric application of such data involves the formation of noctilucent clouds (NLC s) in the vicinity of the mesopause (at 82 km, in the summer hemisphere, where temperatures can fall as low as 130 K, and ice can exist even at the miniscule ambient water vapor concentrations found there). The presence of laige water-aggregated hydronium ions led to the suggestion [e.g., 63-65] that these provide condensation sites for ice particles. Detailed simulation studies bore out the likely relationship between positive ion nucleation and the behavior of some NLC s [66], notwithstanding a strong possibility that meteoritic dust and smoke also had a dominant role [67], ITie contribution to NLC formation of hydronium-ion/electron... 

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