A study of cirrus ice particle size distributions using TC4 observations

An analysis of two days of in situ observations of ice particle size spectra, in convectively generated cirrus, obtained during NASA's Tropical Composition, Cloud, and Climate Coupling (TC4) mission is presented. The observed spectra are examined for their fit to the exponential, gamma, and lognormal function distributions. Characteristic particle size and concentration density scales are determined using two (for the exponential) or three (for the gamma and lognormal functions) moments of the spectra. It is shown that transformed exponential, gamma, and lognormal distributions should collapse onto standard curves. An examination of the transformed spectra, and of deviations of the transformed spectra from the standard curves, shows that the lognormal function provides a better fit to the observed spectra.

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Author Tian, L.
Heymsfield, G.
Heymsfield, Andrew J.
Bansemer, Aaron R.
Li, L.
Twohy, C.
Srivastava, R.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2010-01-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2025-07-17T15:28:07.618764
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:10300
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Tian, L., Heymsfield, G., Heymsfield, Andrew J., Bansemer, Aaron R., Li, L., Twohy, C., Srivastava, R.. (2010). A study of cirrus ice particle size distributions using TC4 observations. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7g73f5n. Accessed 18 August 2025.

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