Ship-produced cloud line of 13 July 1991
- City Coll. of New York, NY (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Desert Research Inst., Reno, NV (United States)
- Navel Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA (United States)
Steaming ships can produce long linear cloud lines in regions of fog and broken stratus as well as in marine stratus layers. The lines are not always detected in 0.63 [mu]m satellite images, but are often detected in the corresponding 3.7 [mu]m images because the lines contain smaller and more numerous droplets than the stratus in which they are embedded as deduced by Coakley, et al. and measured by Radke, et al. They postulate cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) from steaming ships produced the more numerous and, hence, smaller cloud droplets. The ship-produced clouds are not always detected in 0.63 [mu]m images because this wavelength is not as sensitive to changes in droplet size as is 3.7 [mu]m. On 13 July 1991 a dramatic, ship-produced cloud line formed offshore of Baja California. The authors present satellite images of the line and corresponding photographs from the R/V EGABRAG III which passed under the line. The images and photos reveal the structure of the line. The EGABRAG was a source of CCN but did not produce a cloud line; they attempt to explain this important finding.
- Research Organization:
- Nevada Univ., Reno, NV (United States). Desert Research Inst.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOD; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Department of Defense, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG08-90ER61012
- OSTI ID:
- 7368703
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-920881-3; ON: DE93016879; CNN: N00014-89-1955; N00014-91-J-1090
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 11. international conference on clouds and precipitation, Montreal (Canada), 17-21 Aug 1992
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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