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Abstract

As mentioned in the historical review of Chapter I, it has been known for over 150 years that only cooling by expansion of humid air during its ascent can provide clouds with sufficient condensed water to account for the observed amounts of precipitation. It is our main purpose in this chapter to describe the essentials of this thermodynamic cooling process. This will provide us with the minimum necessary mathematical framework for describing the background environmental (cloud) conditions of temperature, pressure, and humidity which control the rate of activation and subsequent diffusional growth of a representative population of cloud particles.

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© 1978 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland

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Pruppacher, H.R., Klett, J.D. (1978). Cooling of Moist Air. In: Microphysics of Clouds and Precipitation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9905-3_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9905-3_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-277-1106-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-9905-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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