Clouds are one of the major uncertainties in climate change predictions caused by their complex structure and dynamics. Numerous cloud processes are acting from cloud-scale down to mm-scale and interplay with each other as well as with atmospheric processes. This complexity on the one hand and the high spatial resolution required to analyse the small scale processes on the other hand cause difficulties in cloud research. One important and until now insufficiently understood process in cloud microphysics is the entrainment process. It defines the turbulent transport of sub-saturated environmental air into the cloud region. Subsequent mixing leads to the evaporation of cloud droplets resulting in negatively buoyant air at cloud edge. One distinguishes between two types of entrainment processes: cloud top and lateral entrainment. While the first type is mostly detected at the top of stratiform clouds, lateral entrainment plays an important role for the dynamics of cumulus clouds.
Within in this thesis, highly-resolved measurements with a resolution down to the centimeter scale performed with the helicopter-borne measurement payload ACTOS (Airborne Cloud Turbulence Observation System) are used to study both types of entrainment processes. Shear-induced cloud top entrainment leads to a turbulent inversion layer (TIL) atop of a stratocumulus layer consisting of clear air. The TIL seems to be coupled with the underlying cloud layer due to the turbulence intensity. With increasing thickness of the TIL the turbulence inside is damped monotonically leading to a maximum layer thickness and inhibiting direct mixing between cloud top and free troposphere. At the edges of shallow trade wind cumuli, shear-induced lateral entrainment generates a subsiding shell. Its evolution is analysed based on detailed measurements in continuously developing shallow cumuli. With the cloud evolution, the subsiding shell grows at the expense of the cloud core region and an increasing downdraft velocity is observed within this region. These observations are confirmed with the simulation of an idealised subsiding shell.
The results present unique observations at the edges of clouds and are an appreciable progress in cloud research which decisively influence future research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:12483 |
| Date | 19 May 2014 |
| Creators | Ditas, Jeannine |
| Contributors | Siebert, Holger, Macke, Andreas, Raasch, Siegfried |
| Publisher | Leibniz Institut für Troposphärenforschung |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | doc-type:doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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