A hybrid bin scheme to solve the condensation/evaporation equation using a cubic distribution function

Abstract. A computationally efficient method is proposed to replace the piecewise linear number distribution in a hybrid bin scheme with a piecewise cubic polynomial. When the linear distribution is replaced by a cubic, the errors generated in solutions to the condensation/evaporation equation are reduced by a factor of two to three. Alternatively, using the cubic distribution function allows reducing the number of bins by 20 ± 5% when solving the condensation/evaporation problem without sacrificing accuracy.