Articles | Volume 17, issue 17
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6761-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6761-2024
Development and technical paper
 | 
12 Sep 2024
Development and technical paper |  | 12 Sep 2024

Preliminary evaluation of the effect of electro-coalescence with conducting sphere approximation on the formation of warm cumulus clouds using SCALE-SDM version 0.2.5–2.3.0

Ruyi Zhang, Limin Zhou, Shin-ichiro Shima, and Huawei Yang

Data sets

Ruyizhang2333/SCALE-SDM-electro-coalescence: SCALE-SDM-electro-coalescence Ruyi Zhang https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11058066

Model code and software

Ruyizhang2333/SCALE-SDM-electro-coalescence: SCALE-SDM-electro-coalescence Ruyi Zhang https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11058066

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Short summary
Solar activity weakly ionises Earth's atmosphere, charging cloud droplets. Electro-coalescence is when oppositely charged droplets stick together. We introduce an analytical expression of electro-coalescence probability and use it in a warm-cumulus-cloud simulation. Results show that charge cases increase rain and droplet size, with the new method outperforming older ones. The new method requires longer computation time, but its impact on rain justifies inclusion in meteorology models.