On the occurrence of hollow bullet rosette- and column-shaped ice crystals in midlatitude cirrus

Cirrus clouds in mid- and high latitudes are frequently composed of bullet rosette- and column-shaped ice crystals, which can have hollow ends. Bullet rosette-shaped ice crystals are composed of a number of bullets radiating from a central point. Research has shown that the light-scattering properties of ice particles with hollow ends are different from the scattering properties of solid ice particles. Knowledge of the frequency of occurrence of hollow particles is important to more accurately calculate the radiative properties of cirrus clouds. This note presents the results of a survey of cirrus cloud ice crystal replicas imaged from balloon-borne Formvar (polyvinyl formal) replicators. Fifty percent to 80% of the replicated bullet rosette– and column-shaped particles had hollow ends. In bullets longer than 150 μm in length, the length of the hollows of the bullets averaged 88% of the total length of the bullet. The combined length of both hollow portions of column-shaped ice crystals varied from 50% of the length of the column for 30-μm-long columns to 80% of the length of the columns longer than 200 μm. Asymmetry parameter values estimated from cirrus cloud aircraft particle size distributions are higher by 0.014 when hollow crystals are considered. This difference leads to a 2.5 W m⁻² increase for hollow crystals at the surface for a 0.5 optical depth cloud, demonstrating the importance of the incorporation of hollow particle scattering characteristics into radiative transfer calculations.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright 2007 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Schmitt, Carl G.
Heymsfield, Andrew J.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2007-12-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2025-07-17T16:00:41.294865
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:6677
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Schmitt, Carl G., Heymsfield, Andrew J.. (2007). On the occurrence of hollow bullet rosette- and column-shaped ice crystals in midlatitude cirrus. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7p26zbc. Accessed 06 August 2025.

Harvest Source