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Detailed Reference Information
Westbrook et al. 2007
Westbrook, C.D., Hogan, R.J., Illingworth, A.J. and O'Connor, E.J. (2007). Theory and observations of ice particle evolution in cirrus using Doppler radar: Evidence for aggregation. Geophysical Research Letters 34: doi: 10.1029/2006GL027863. issn: 0094-8276.

Vertically pointing Doppler radar has been used to study the evolution of ice particles as they sediment through a cirrus cloud. The measured Doppler fall speeds, together with radar-derived estimates for the altitude of cloud top, are used to estimate a characteristic fall time t c for the 'average' ice particle. The change in radar reflectivity Z is studied as a function of t c , and is found to increase exponentially with fall time. We use the idea of dynamically scaling particle size distributions to show that this behaviour implies exponential growth of the average particle size, and argue that this exponential growth is a signature of ice crystal aggregation.

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Abstract

Keywords
Atmospheric Processes, Theoretical modeling, Atmospheric Processes, Remote sensing, Atmospheric Processes, Precipitation, Atmospheric Composition and Structure, Cloud physics and chemistry
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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