How frequent is natural cloud seeding from ice cloud layers ( &lt; −35&thinsp;°C) over Switzerland?

Proske, Ulrike; Bessenbacher, Verena; Dedekind, Zane; Lohmann, Ulrike; Neubauer, David

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5195-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5195-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5195-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 6

Research article

|

01 Apr 2021

Research article |

| 01 Apr 2021

How frequent is natural cloud seeding from ice cloud layers ( < −35 °C) over Switzerland?

Ulrike Proske, Verena Bessenbacher, Zane Dedekind, Ulrike Lohmann, and David Neubauer

Data sets

Data for the publication "How frequent is natural cloud seeding from ice cloud layers (<-35°C) over Switzerland?" Ulrike Proske, Verena Bessenbacher, Zane Dedekind, Ulrike Lohmann, and David Neubauer https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3987757

Model code and software

Scripts for the publication "How frequent is natural cloud seeding from ice cloud layers (<-35°C) over Switzerland?" Ulrike Proske, Verena Bessenbacher, Zane Dedekind, Ulrike Lohmann, and David Neubauer https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3987754

Short summary

Ice crystals falling out of one cloud can initiate freezing in a second cloud below. We estimate the occurrence frequency of this natural cloud seeding over Switzerland from satellite data and sublimation calculations. We find that such situations with an ice cloud above another cloud are frequent and that the falling crystals survive the fall between two clouds in a significant number of cases, suggesting that natural cloud seeding is an important phenomenon over Switzerland.