Radiatively Induced Precipitation Formation in Diamond Dust.

Radiative cooling leads to the formation of dew and frost. This process is extended into a numerical model to simulate the ice crystal characteristics of diamond dust. The model replicates the low ice crystal concentration of diamond dust and the precipitation in stationary air. Its results are consistent with the arctic observations that large ice crystals grow while small ones sublimate and partly explain the geographic and seasonal distributions of diamond dust such as the high frequency of diamond dust in the arctic regions and winter. Furthermore, its results show that plate/column-like ice crystals with radiative cooling grow in expense of quasi-spherical ice particles, partly explaining the ice crystal shapes observed in diamond dust.