A three–dimensional model of transport and diffusion of seeding agents within stratus

Abstract

It is essential to learn the temporal and spatial concentration distributions and variations of seeding agents in cloud seeding of precipitation enhancement. A three–dimensional puff trajectory model incorporating a mesoscale nonhydrostatic model has been formulated, and is applied to simulating the transporting and diffusive characteristics of multiple line sources of seeding agents within super–cooled stratus. Several important factors are taken into consideration that affect the diffusion of seeding materials such as effects of topography and vertical wind shear, temporal and spatial variation of seeding parameters and wet deposition. The particles of seeding agents are assumed to be almost inert, they have no interaction with the particles of the cloud or precipitation except that they are washed out by precipitation. The model validity is demonstrated by the analyses and comparisons of model results, and checked by the sensitivity experiments of diffusive coefficients and atmospheric stratification. The advantage of this model includes not only its exact reflection of heterogeneity and unsteadiness of background fields, but also its good simulation of transport and diffusion of multiple line sources. The horizontal diffusion rate and the horizontal transport distance have been proposed that they usually were difficult to obtain in other models. In this simulation the horizontal diffusion rate is 0.82 m s−1 for average of one hour, and the horizontal average transport distance reaches 65 km after 1 h, which are closely related to the background fields.