Mystery hole-punch cloud formation solved

It's nice to hear that humans are still solving some basic natural phenomena. We aren't as smart as we tend to think.

Since 1940's scientists have been wondering about the hole-punch clouds. They have suggested that the cause could be any aviation-related cause, such as  acoustic shock waves produced by jets, to local warming of the air along a jet's path, to the formation of ice along jet contrails.


Image credit: Alan Sealls

Researchers in the 1980s observed that propeller aircraft could transform supercooled droplets into ice crystals, and experiments were launched in the 1990s to characterize the phenomenon.

Now, in 2010, they finally came up with the answer : water droplets at subfreezing temperatures, below about 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 degrees Celsius). As air is cooled behind aircraft propellers or over jet wings, the water droplets freeze and drop toward Earth.

So each propeller airplane is a rain-maker. How cool. The next step would obviously be, how can we apply this to make rain in areas where it is badly needed.

Posted by Petra S at 6/21/2010 2:40 PM
Categories: Eco stuff
Tags: Green technology Environment
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