Frost flower formation on sea ice and lake ice
Frost flowers are clusters of ice crystals found on freshly formed sea ice and occasionally on frozen lakes. They belong to a class of vapour‐related phenomena that includes freezing fog, hoar frost and dew. It has hitherto been supposed that they form by condensation from a supersaturated atmospher...
Saved in:
Published in | Geophysical research letters Vol. 36; no. 11; pp. L11501 - n/a |
---|---|
Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Washington, DC
American Geophysical Union
01.06.2009
Blackwell Publishing Ltd John Wiley & Sons, Inc |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | Frost flowers are clusters of ice crystals found on freshly formed sea ice and occasionally on frozen lakes. They belong to a class of vapour‐related phenomena that includes freezing fog, hoar frost and dew. It has hitherto been supposed that they form by condensation from a supersaturated atmosphere or from water wicked up through porous sea ice. Here we show that they can form on solid, pure ice sublimating into an unsaturated atmosphere. We derive a general regime diagram showing the atmospheric conditions under which the different vapour‐related phenomena occur and confirm our predictions of frost‐flower formation with a series of laboratory experiments. Our results can be used in climate models to predict occurrence of frost flowers, which significantly enhance albedo and provide the substrate for chemical production of ozone‐depleting bromine monoxide, and in paleo‐climate reconstructions by relating observations of sea‐salt aerosols in ice cores to atmospheric conditions. |
---|---|
Bibliography: | istex:71944D3706FEDBA9A368959F522911BDD1BE6EA1 ark:/67375/WNG-TK3PW2ZR-L Tab-delimited Table 1. ArticleID:2009GL037304 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-2 ObjectType-Feature-1 |
ISSN: | 0094-8276 1944-8007 |
DOI: | 10.1029/2009GL037304 |