An observational and theoretical study of highly supercooled altocumulus

Abstract

Radiative transfer calculations suggest radiation played an important role in driving convection in the more dynamically unstable of the two clouds. A simple model shows that radiative cooling causes sufficient negative buoyancy in cloudtop parcels to produce convective instability and to reproduce the observed downdraft velocities. Entrainment of warmer, drier air near cloudtop is shown to partially counteract the radiatively induced negative buoyancy in the downdrafts. -from Authors