Thunderstorm Electrification Analysis: The Dependence on the Temperature–LWC Diagram

Abstract

The dependence on liquid water content (LWC) and temperature (T) of the charge transfer, and in particular its sign, during ice crystal?graupel collisions is a matter of controversy. Some of the laboratory measurements do not agree on the general shape of this function, although they agree on the existence of a critical temperature Tr, above which there is one sign and below which the opposite one. In this paper, the authors carry out a numerical study to investigate the behavior of three charging parameterizations in thunderstorm electrification. This study is carried out on one cloud case study, and a limited set of T?LWC values are present. Surprisingly, the general behavior is the same among the three, despite the distinct differences in the charging diagrams.