In the atmosphere, clouds develop when water vapour condenses leading to the formation of cloud drops. This process is usually supported by the presence of condensation nuclei which allow drop formation at low supersaturations. Aerosol particles in the air can act as such condensation nuclei. Once the formation of cloud drops is initiated, several physical processes lead to a growth of the drops. Small drops mainly grow by condensation of water vapour from the surrounding atmosphere onto the drop, while for larger drops collision and subsequent coalescence of drops are the main mechanism for growth.
The collision process of these larger drops is influenced by the size of the drops, as larger drops fall faster than smaller ones. Therefore, larger drops can collect smaller drops due to different terminal velocities. Another important driver for drop collision is turbulence which can lead to an increase in collisions due to the inertia of the drops.
However, not every drop collision results in coalescence. Two colliding drops can bounce off from each other or break up into smaller drops. It can be shown that successful coalescence is more likely when the colliding drops are electrically charged. Charging of drops can occur naturally due to background radioactivity and cosmic rays, which form ions in the atmosphere and cause aerosol particles to carry a slight charge. Thus, by charged aerosol particles acting as condensation nuclei, charged cloud drops are formed. Because of the polarisation of one drop from the charge carried by another drop, even drops with like charges will experience attractive forces, given that their separation distance is sufficiently small. This effect increases the efficiency of the collision and coalescence processes in the cloud and therefore can act to accelerate the drop growth and ultimately the production of raindrops.
In our project we are developing a model to simulate the behaviour of cloud drops in a warm cloud. For a small volume of such a cloud the turbulent flow is simulated using Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) and the collision of drops in the turbulent flow is studied. By introducing charged drops into the simulation and considering the electrical forces resulting from the charge, we will be able to investigate the influence of electrical charge on the collision rate and size distribution of cloud drops and the production of rain drops.
To illustrate this type of simulation, the figure below shows a snapshot from a simulation where cloud drops are moving in a flow with periodic boundary conditions and growing by collision.To see the animation click on this link.
