Articles | Volume 17, issue 14
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-5641-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-5641-2024
Model description paper
 | 
26 Jul 2024
Model description paper |  | 26 Jul 2024

New explicit formulae for the settling speed of prolate spheroids in the atmosphere: theoretical background and implementation in AerSett v2.0.2

Sylvain Mailler, Sotirios Mallios, Arineh Cholakian, Vassilis Amiridis, Laurent Menut, and Romain Pennel

Model code and software

AerSett (v2.0.2) S. Mailler et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10261378

FreeFall: v2.2 (v2.2) S. Mailler https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11066588

Short summary
We propose two explicit expressions to calculate the settling speed of solid atmospheric particles with prolate spheroidal shapes. The first formulation is based on theoretical arguments only, while the second one is based on computational fluid dynamics calculations. We show that the first method is suitable for virtually all atmospheric aerosols, provided their shape can be adequately described as a prolate spheroid, and we provide an implementation of the first method in AerSett v2.0.2.