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<br />\.\.fQ'f:) <br /> <br />!~ <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />pressure over water is greater than that over ice, so the drop- <br />let diminishes by evaporstion and the crystal grows by sub- <br />limation. As the crystsl grows it becomes heavy enough to <br />fall; as it fslls it may shatter, providing more ice nuclei <br />to keep the process going. These crystals, as they grow and <br />fall, may collide with one another and form still larger <br />crystsls--snowflakes. When they reach a level where the tem- <br />perature is warmer than O. C they melt and fall as rain or <br />drizzle. <br /> <br />Since all rain does not fall from clouds which contain super- <br />cooled droplets, another theory was needed to explain "warm <br />rain." Sometimes ane cloud droplet grows IllUch ]a rger than <br />those around it. The physical details of the process are still <br />obscure, but as it falls it collides with other droplets, form- <br />ing a larger droplet. As the droplet grows larger it sweeps <br />out a larger area of the small droplets, and eventuslly will <br />shatter, supplying several more Isrge droplets to continue the <br />process. These large drops ultimately fall out of the cloud <br />as rain. <br /> <br />Vincent J, Schaefer discovered that a tiny piece of dry ice, <br />when dropped into a cold chamber filled with supercooled water <br />droplets, caused the formation of millions of ice crystals. <br />Schaefer now observed what Veraart had apparently not noted <br />some 16 years earlier. Irving Langmuir calculsted 19at a pellet <br />of dry ice the size of a pea would produce about 10 (ten <br />thousand million million) ice crystals. Studies have shown <br />that when supercooled cloud droplets are further cooled to <br />about -40' C they change spontaneously to the solid state. <br />Because ita temperature is much colder thsn this, dry ice <br />chills the air around it to below -40. C, and any supercooled <br />cloud droplets in that air will freeze. The first field test <br />was conducted in November 1946, with definite changes observed <br />in cloud characteristics. <br /> <br />At about the same time (November 1946) Bernard Vannegut dis- <br />covered that minute crystals of silver iodide, produced in the <br />form of a smoke, acted as ice-fonDing nuclei at temperatures <br />colder than -5. C. It is not clear just how silver iodide <br />induces nucleation. It was originally thought that the simi- <br />larity in crystal structure between natural ice and silver <br />iodide was the key, but recent studies suggest that this may <br />not be the case. Enormous numbers of nuclei (about 1015 per <br />gram of silver iodide) can be produced by vsporizing an <br />acetone solution of ailver iodide in a hot flame, and this <br />suggested the possibility of a ground dispersal system, using <br />convective currents to carry the particles into the super- <br />cooled region of the cloud. The first large scale trials <br />using this technique took place in June 1950. <br /> <br />5 <br />