E-resources
Peer reviewed
-
Shaw, Raymond A
Annual review of fluid mechanics, 01/2003, Volume: 35, Issue: 1Journal Article
Turbulence is ubiquitous in atmospheric clouds, which have enormous turbulence Reynolds numbers owing to the large range of spatial scales present. Indeed, the ratio of energy-containing and dissipative length scales is on the order of 10 5 for a typical convective cloud, with a corresponding large-eddy Reynolds number on the order of 10 6 to 10 7 . A characteristic trait of high-Reynolds-number turbulence is strong intermittency in energy dissipation, Lagrangian acceleration, and scalar gradients at small scales. Microscale properties of clouds are determined to a great extent by thermodynamic and fluid-mechanical interactions between droplets and the surrounding air, all of which take place at small spatial scales. Furthermore, these microscale properties of clouds affect the efficiency with which clouds produce rain as well as the nature of their interaction with atmospheric radiation and chemical species. It is expected, therefore, that fine-scale turbulence is of direct importance to the evolution of, for example, the droplet size distribution in a cloud. In general, there are two levels of interaction that are considered in this review: ( a ) the growth of cloud droplets by condensation and ( b ) the growth of large drops through the collision and coalescence of cloud droplets. Recent research suggests that the influence of fine-scale turbulence on the condensation process may be limited, although several possible mechanisms have not been studied in detail in the laboratory or the field. There is a growing consensus, however, that the collision rate and collision efficiency of cloud droplets can be increased by turbulence-particle interactions. Adding strength to this notion is the growing experimental evidence for droplet clustering at centimeter scales and below, most likely due to strong fluid accelerations in turbulent clouds. Both types of interaction, condensation and collision-coalescence, remain open areas of research with many possible implications for the physics of atmospheric clouds.
Author
Shelf entry
Permalink
- URL:
Impact factor
Access to the JCR database is permitted only to users from Slovenia. Your current IP address is not on the list of IP addresses with access permission, and authentication with the relevant AAI accout is required.
Year | Impact factor | Edition | Category | Classification | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
JCR | SNIP | JCR | SNIP | JCR | SNIP | JCR | SNIP |
Select the library membership card:
If the library membership card is not in the list,
add a new one.
DRS, in which the journal is indexed
Database name | Field | Year |
---|
Links to authors' personal bibliographies | Links to information on researchers in the SICRIS system |
---|
Source: Personal bibliographies
and: SICRIS
The material is available in full text. If you wish to order the material anyway, click the Continue button.