Rain Initiation Time in Turbulent Warm Clouds

Abstract

A mean field model is presented that describes droplet growth resulting from condensation and collisions and droplet loss resulting from fallout. The model allows for an effective numerical simulation. The numerical scheme that is conservative in water mass and keeps accurate count of the number of droplets is applied, and the way in which the rain initiation time depends on different parameters is studied. In particular, it is shown that the rain initiation time depends nonmonotonically (has a minimum) on the number of cloud condensation nuclei. Also presented is a simple model that allows one to estimate the rain initiation time for turbulent clouds with an inhomogeneous concentration of cloud condensation nuclei. It is argued that by overseeding even a part of a cloud by small hygroscopic nuclei one can substantially delay the onset of precipitation.