The electrification of freezing water droplets and of colliding ice particles

✍ Scribed by D. G. Evans; W. C. A. Hutchinson

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1963
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 530 KB
• Volume: 89
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0035-9009
• DOI: 10.1002/qj.49708938108

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

When supercooled drops of diameter 1·3 mm were nucleated at — 0·2$C and froze in an environment at — 15$C and fragmented, the average charge on positive residues was 1·5 × 10^−3^ e.s.u., and on negative residues — 2·2 × 10^−3^ e.s.u. The charges were comparable with those found in similar measurements by Mason and Maybank but were usually far too large to be accounted for by the Latham‐Mason temperature‐gradient theory.

When ice crystals differing in temperature by up to 10$C were brought into momentary contact, any charge produced was less than 10^−4^ e.s.u. This result is not inconsistent with the Latham‐Mason theory and does not confirm the much larger values reported by Reynolds et al.