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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ACPD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ACPD</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">1680-7375</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus GmbH</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/acpd-8-4407-2008</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Growth-deviation model to understand the perceived variety of falling snow</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Nelson</surname>
<given-names>J.</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>College of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Nojihigashi 1-1-1, Kusatsu 525-8577, Japan</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>04</day>
<month>03</month>
<year>2008</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>8</volume>
<issue>2</issue>
<fpage>4407</fpage>
<lpage>4437</lpage>
<permissions>
<license xlink:type="simple">
<license-p>This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.</license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
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<self-uri xlink:href="http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/4407/2008/acpd-8-4407-2008.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/4407/2008/acpd-8-4407-2008.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>What is the source of snow-crystal variety? This question is answered using
a model of snow-crystal growth in a cloud. In the model, crystals start
under various initial cloud-crystal conditions, and then encounter growth
perturbations from random air-temperature deviations along simple crystal
trajectories. To obtain distributions of these deviations, I analyzed recent
high-resolution measurements of cloud updrafts and temperatures. The
trajectories and distributions are used to estimate the number of possible
snow crystal shapes, to a given viewing resolution, from a range of initial
conditions. The logarithm of this number, defined here as the perceived
shape variety or &quot;diversity&quot;, is dominated not by the range of conditions,
but rather by the air-temperature deviations along a trajectory. This
qualitative result is independent of the viewing resolution. Thus,
temperature deviations are the main source of crystal diversity. When
plotted against the crystal&apos;s initial temperature (here &amp;ndash;11 to &amp;ndash;19&amp;deg;C),
the curve is mitten-shaped, with a main peak at &amp;ndash;15.4&amp;deg;C and a smaller,
sharper peak near &amp;ndash;14.4&amp;deg;C. The mitten shape arises from temperature
trends in the crystal&apos;s terminal fallspeed and prism-face growth rate.
Specifically, the two diversity peaks are due to maxima in growth-rate
sensitivity to temperature near &amp;ndash;15.4 and &amp;ndash;14.0&amp;deg;C. Applying the
results to all snow crystals ever formed, then, to 1-&amp;mu;m resolution, all
crystals that began near &amp;ndash;15&amp;deg;C would appear unique, but some that
began near &amp;ndash;11&amp;deg;C would not.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="31"/></counts>
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<back>
<ref-list>
<title>References</title>
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</back>
</article>