Cloud top entrainment instability.

Abstract

The criterion for instability of dry air mixing into a cloud top is determined both graphically and mathematically. It is found to be identical to the buoyancy-flux instability criterion of Randall (1976) based on stratocumulus mixed-layer jump-model equations. Numerical calculations from a three-dimensional boundary-layer turbulence model with stratocumulus are examined from the viewpoint of cloud top entrainment instability. -from Author