Particle Size Distributions and Influential Factors Derived from Aircraft Measurements in the Cold Orographic Clouds in the Qilian Mountains, Northeastern Tibetan Plateau

• DOI: 10.1175/jamc-d-23-0224.1
• Publication Date: 2025-04-25T16:12:00Z
• Authors: Ying Huang; Danhong Fu; Xueliang Guo; Wenyu Zhang
• Keywords: Orographic lift; Orography

Abstract Particle size distributions (PSDs) are highly important in numerical models of cloud microphysical schemes. However, PSDs have large uncertainties due to complex ice particle habits and formation processes. The influential factors were investigated based on aircraft measurements cold stratiform orographic clouds August 16 29, 2020, over the Qilian Mountains (QM), northeastern Tibetan Plateau. results revealed that displayed multiple vertically layered structures, number concentration particles was greater mature stage, supercooled liquid water content (SLWC) dissipating stage. seeder-feeder mechanism present both events. upper containing low-concentration large-sized acted as seeding low-level feeding with higher SLWC significantly broadened PSDs. mostly unimodal well-fitted gamma distributions. fitting parameters intercept N 0, slope λ , dispersion μ clearly related temperature for non-precipitating particles, whereas there no clear relationship precipitating particles. increased increasing decreased (IWC) maximum diameter (D max ) indicating importance riming aggregation processes clouds. not independent parameters, their relationships can be well formulated.