Marine boundary-layer cloud structure from CM- to KM-scales [electronic resource].
- Published:
- Washington, D.C. : United States. Dept. of Energy, 2000.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy. - Physical Description:
- 8 pages : digital, PDF file
- Additional Creators:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
United States. Department of Energy
United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information - Access Online:
- www.osti.gov
- Summary:
- The authors analysis of small-scale LWC fluctuations in PVM-100A data from SOCEX-1 supports the still controversial claim that droplet concentration is not everywhere Poissonian. This does not exclude a slow (spectral exponent β = 5/3) low-amplitude component in the variability of droplet number and size distribution. We believe the cause of the excess small-scale LWC variance causing the scale-break at 2--5 m lies in entrainment- and/or-mixing events; such processes maybe related to the intermittency (occasional bursts of variability at the inner-scale) associated with the large-scale multifractality. Comparing exponents obtained for large-scale behavior with those previously obtained from two other field programs, we uncover remarkable similarities between the basic multifractal (i.e., arbitrary-order structure function) properties of LWC in SOCEX, FIRE'87 and ASTEX clouds and those of passively advected scalars in turbulent flows. However, we also find interesting differences between the three kinds of marine cloud cover and with passive scalars but these are in the details of the various multifractal characterizations (inner and outer scales, high-order scaling). To reproduce these statistical behaviors defines a quantitatively-precise challenge for the cloud-modeling community.
- Subject(s):
- Note:
- Published through SciTech Connect.
04/01/2000.
"la-ur-00-2067"
13th International Conference on Clouds and Precipitation, Reno, NV (US), 08/14/2000--08/18/2000.
Davis, A. - Funding Information:
- W-7405-ENG-36
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