Fragmentation of Freezing Drops in Shallow Maritime Frontal Clouds

Abstract

Images of frozen drops with pieces missing were collected on two days of airborne sampling in shallow supercooled stratiform frontal clouds in the coastal waters of Washington State. In those limited regions where ice appeared to be newly formed, ice fragments with rounded portions accounted for about 5% of the total ice particle concentrations. These results are in rough agreement with the body of literature on laboratory experiments concerning the freezing of drops in free fall that have suggested a modest, though not insignificant, role for the fragmentation of freezing drops on total ice particle concentrations when larger supercooled drops are present.