CloudKite Reveals 1-Meter Rain Hotspots in Warm Clouds, Capturing Droplets 75 Times a Second
Updated
Updated · Yahoo! Voices · Aug 21
CloudKite Reveals 1-Meter Rain Hotspots in Warm Clouds, Capturing Droplets 75 Times a Second
2 articles · Updated · Yahoo! Voices · Aug 21
Summary
Meter-scale patches inside warm cumulus clouds appear to be where rain begins, with droplets clustering at separations of about 1 millimeter rather than across the whole cloud.
CloudKite — a helium balloon-kite flown near Barbados by Max Planck researchers — mapped droplet size and position in 3D at 75 measurements per second, exposing structures aircraft and drones can miss.
The PNAS study suggests turbulence and other local dynamics, not simply droplet concentration or average size, may drive these collision-friendly hotspots.
Warm clouds produce much of Earth's tropical rainfall, so pinning down how these hotspots form could improve weather forecasts and climate models; more CloudKite flights are planned over the Amazon, Baltic Sea and Finland.