which provides a surface for it to condense on. Credit : David Babb & Minnesota Univ. - ThreadSky

locuste.bsky.social • 92 days ago

which provides a surface for it to condense on.
Credit : David Babb & Minnesota Univ.

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locuste.bsky.social•92 days ago

You can’t even imagine the number and diversity of aerosols up there. There’s really everything: dust grains, sand, ash, and more.
Without their intervention to catalyze the transition from the gaseous state to the liquid state, the water vapor does not condense.

locuste.bsky.social•92 days ago

This means that any water vapor that does not encounter these nuclei will remain water vapor…

As for the droplets, even though it seems crazy, they will be visible from the surface of the Earth - not individually, of course, but as a whole, because these are what form clouds !

locuste.bsky.social•92 days ago

And it is in the very heart of these clouds that the next part of our story will unfold…As I mentioned, they obviously contain droplets, but there is also water vapor that has not condensed, plus the remaining available microparticles.

locuste.bsky.social•92 days ago

Each of these three elements can play a role in the formation of snow. But for that, the local temperature must first be significantly below freezing. So, we need a very cold cloud.

locuste.bsky.social•92 days ago

If this condition is met, all our actors will then come into play; but among them, I suggest we first focus on the microparticles…Earlier, I implied that aerosols could all serve as condensation nuclei, right? Well, I need to qualify my statement, beacause in truth,

locuste.bsky.social•92 days ago

only some of them are capable of doing so.It actually depends on their size, their chemical composition, and of course, the weather conditions as we have seen.

Based on these criteria, we find that not all aerosols have the stature of a condensation nucleus.

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