Laboratory studies of riming, and its relation to ice splinter production

✍ Scribed by T. W. Choularton; D. J. Griggs; B. Y. Humood; J. Latham

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1980
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 753 KB
• Volume: 106
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0035-9009
• DOI: 10.1002/qj.49710644809

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Experiments have shown that if a supercooled drop is accreted on to a rimer in such a way that it lands on an already frozen smaller droplet then it may develop a protuberance as it freezes, presumably because the heat loss is fairly symmetrical. These protuberances were found in the temperature range –3 to –8°C, and their probability of production reached a maximum at –5 to –6°C of 1 for every 20 drops accreted. The protuberances tended to have a larger aspect ratio and to be longer relative to the drop diameter at lower temperatures. All these effects were found to be independent of speed of collection over the range 1.5 to 3ms^−1^. Due to the strong parallelism between the conditions required for protuberance production and ice splinter ejection during riming we suggest that the splinters are a result of explosive fragmentation of about 1% of the protuberances formed. This idea is supported by some experimental evidence.