A DNS study of aerosol and small-scale cloud turbulence interaction

Babkovskaia, Natalia; Rannik, Ullar; Phillips, Vaughan; Siebert, Holger; Wehner, Birgit; Boy, Michael

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-7889-2016

Articles | Volume 16, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-7889-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-7889-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 12

Research article

|

29 Jun 2016

Research article |

| 29 Jun 2016

A DNS study of aerosol and small-scale cloud turbulence interaction

Natalia Babkovskaia, Ullar Rannik, Vaughan Phillips, Holger Siebert, Birgit Wehner, and Michael Boy

Data sets

The fine-scale structure of the trade wind cumuli over Barbados – an introduction to the CARRIBA project H. Siebert, M. Beals, J. Bethke, E. Bierwirth, T. Conrath, K. Dieckmann, F. Ditas, A. Ehrlich, D. Farrell, S. Hartmann, M. A. Izaguirre, J. Katzwinkel, L. Nuijens, G. Roberts, M. Schäfer, R. A. Shaw, T. Schmeissner, I. Serikov, B. Stevens, F. Stratmann, B. Wehner, M. Wendisch, F. Werner, and H. Wex https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-10061-2013

Short summary

Turbulence, aerosol growth and microphysics of hydrometeors in clouds are intimately coupled. A new modelling approach was applied to quantify this linkage. We study the interaction in the cloud area under transient, high supersaturation conditions, using direct numerical simulations. Analysing the effect of aerosol dynamics on the turbulent kinetic energy and on vertical velocity, we conclude that the presence of aerosol has an effect on vertical motion and tends to reduce downward velocity.