A Review of Thermo- and Diffusio-Phoresis in the Atmospheric Aerosol Scavenging Process. Part 2: Ice Crystal and Snow Scavenging

The role of phoretic forces in the identification of particles acting as ice nuclei in mixed phase cloud is discussed. A method used to identify the effective ice nucleating particles is to sample ice crystals, which are afterwards sublimated, and to examine the particles remaining after evaporation. The procedure takes into account only crystal with a maximum diameter of 20 μm, by assuming that small crystals do not scavenge aerosol during growth, and therefore that crystals contain only the effective nucleating particles. This assumption is questionable, however, as experiments have shown that even small ice crystals can scavenge aerosol. Another approach has been to compare the number and elemental composition of residual particles in small ice crystals and of aerosol near the cloud. By considering as example soot and black carbon aerosol, contradictory conclusions on their importance in the processes of ice nucleation have been reported in the literature. We suggest that, in addition to physico-chemical properties of soot/carbon aerosol particles, even the microphysical and environmental parameters involved in the transition of aerosol from gas phase to ice crystals in cloud should be considered. The contribution of phoretic forces should also be considered. After initial growth ice crystals can continue to grow by water vapour diffusion. Laboratory experiments confirm the contribution of diffusiophoresis with Stefan flow in the scavenging by snow crystals up to 3 mm in diameter. The particle scavenging efficiency of snow crystals is related to crystalline shape and depends on air relative humidity and temperature.

Comprehensive simulation of snow crystal deposition and electric field characteristics of composite sheath improved porcelain cantilever insulator in a wind and snow environment

The installed porcelain insulators on existing railway lines in China are prone to“snow flash”in winter.In order to prevent the occurrence of“snow flash”and improve the reliability of the insulators,a composite-porcelain insulator is designed.A multi-physics coupling simulation model is built based on numerical simulation methods of the electromagnetic field theory and computational fluid dynamics.Taking average electric field intensity on the surface of the insulator as the characteristic parameter of the electric field distortion degree and the snow crystal collision coefficient and distribution coefficient as the characteristic parameter of snow crystal deposition,the characteristics of snow crystal deposition under different wind speeds and wind direction angles and the electric field characteristics under two snow cover types are analyzed.The simulation results show that the average electric field intensity of composite-porcelain insulators is 10.4%and 13.8%,respectively,lower than that of porcelain insulators in vertical and horizontal wind snow covers,which can effectively reduce the degree of electric field distortion.The collision coefficient of snow crystals on the surface of the composite-porcelain insulator sheds is 16.0%higher than that of the porcelain insulator,and the collision coefficient of the trunk and the fittings are lower 20.2%and 11.9%than that of the porcelain insulator.There is almost no change in the distribution coefficient of the insulator sheds.

Sensitivity of Snowfall Characteristics to Meteorological Conditions in the Yeongdong Region of Korea

This study investigates the characteristics of cold clouds and snowfall in both the Yeongdong coastal and mountainous regions under different meteorological conditions based on the integration of numerical modeling and three-hourly rawinsonde observations with snow crystal photographs for a snowfall event that occurred on 29−30 January 2016.We found that rimed particles predominantly observed turned into dendrite particles in the latter period of the episode when the 850 hPa temperature decreased at the coastal site,whereas the snow crystal habits at the mountainous site were largely needle or rimed needle.Rawinsonde soundings showed a well-defined,two-layered cloud structure along with distinctive wind-directional shear,and an inversion in the equivalent potential temperature above the low-level cloud layer.The first experiment with a decrease in lower-layer temperature showed that the low-level cloud thickness was reduced to less than 1.5 km,and the accumulated precipitation was decreased by 87%compared with the control experiment.The difference in precipitation amount between the single-layered experiment and control experiment(two-layered)was not so significant to attribute it to the effect of the seeder−feeder mechanism.The precipitation in the last experiment by weakening winddirectional shear was increased by 1.4 times greater than the control experiment specifically at the coastal site,with graupel particles accounting for the highest proportion(~62%).The current results would improve snowfall forecasts in complicated geographical environments such as Yeongdong in terms of snow crystal habit as well as snowfall amount in both time and space domains.