English
Related papers

Related papers: Some considerations about snow crystallogenesis

200 papers

We will show that the complex shapes of snow crystals can be explained from a simple basic mechanism that is also responsible for the appearance of many others structures in nature. We expect that this new physical mechanism, that follows…

Pattern Formation and Solitons · Physics 2007-05-23 Francisco Vera

Ice clouds, particularly cirrus clouds, significantly influence Earth's radiative balance but remain poorly characterized in current climate models. A major uncertainty arises from the variability of their microphysical properties,…

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics · Physics 2025-08-05 Gianluca Di Natale , Francesco Pio De Cosmo , Leandro Cieri

Ice crystals growing in highly supersaturated air at temperatures near -5 C exhibit a distinctive, nonplanar dendritic morphology that has not been previously documented or explained. We examine this structure and identify its most…

Materials Science · Physics 2009-12-15 Kenneth G. Libbrecht

Crystal faceting can emerge via two broad physical mechanisms: anisotropic attachment kinetics on growing crystals and anisotropic surface energies on near-equilibrium crystals. For the case of the ice/vapor system, anisotropic attachment…

Materials Science · Physics 2023-06-08 Kenneth G. Libbrecht , James Walkling

Facetted growth of snow crystals leads to a rich diversity of forms, and exhibits a remarkable sixfold symmetry. Snow crystal structures result from diffusion limited crystal growth in the presence of anisotropic surface energy and…

Materials Science · Physics 2012-08-02 John W. Barrett , Harald Garcke , Robert Nürnberg

We propose a new type of morphological instability in the diffusion-limited growth of faceted crystals from the vapor phase that can explain the formation of thin ice plates at temperatures near -15 C. The instability appears when the…

Materials Science · Physics 2007-05-23 Kenneth G. Libbrecht

We present measurements of the diffusion-limited growth of ice crystals from water vapor at a temperature of -5 C, in air at a pressure of $p_{air}=1$ bar. Starting with thin, c-axis ice needle crystals, the subsequent growth morphologies…

Materials Science · Physics 2016-03-01 Kenneth G. Libbrecht

We present observations of the formation of plate-like snow crystals that provide evidence for an edge-enhancing crystal growth instability. This instability arises when the condensation coefficient describing the growth of an ice prism…

Materials Science · Physics 2011-11-14 Kenneth G. Libbrecht

We describe how surface interactions can affect the growth of ice crystal facets in contact with a substrate by lowering the normal nucleation barrier on the ice surface. We also describe how the resulting enhanced growth rates can produce…

Materials Science · Physics 2012-08-28 Kenneth G. Libbrecht

We present measurements of the growth rates of the principal facet surfaces of ice from water vapor as a function of supersaturation over the temperature range -2 C > T > -40 C. Our data are well described by a dislocation-free…

Materials Science · Physics 2014-08-26 K. G. Libbrecht , M. E. Rickerby

The growth of snow crystals is dependent on the temperature and saturation of the environment. In the case of dendrites, Reiter's local two-dimensional model provides a realistic approach to the study of dendrite growth. In this paper we…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2016-02-17 Jessica Li , Laura P. Schaposnik

We describe a novel crystal growth instability that enhances the development of thin edges, promoting the formation of plate-like or hollow columnar morphologies. This instability arises when diffusion-limited growth is coupled with…

Materials Science · Physics 2012-09-25 Kenneth G. Libbrecht

We present a series of experiments investigating the growth of ice crystals from water vapor in the presence of a background gas. We measured growth dynamics at temperatures ranging from -2 C to -25 C, at supersaturations between 0.5 and 30…

Materials Science · Physics 2008-11-19 Kenneth G. Libbrecht , Helen C. Morrison , Benjamin Faber

We introduce a three-dimensional, computationally feasible, mesoscopic model for snow crystal growth, based on diffusion of vapor, anisotropic attachment, and a semi-liquid boundary layer. Several case studies are presented that faithfully…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2007-11-27 Janko Gravner , David Griffeath

We examine ice crystal growth from water vapor at temperatures near the melting point, when surface premelting creates a quasiliquid layer at the solid/vapor interface. Recent ice growth measurements as a function of vapor supersaturation…

Materials Science · Physics 2014-07-04 Kenneth G. Libbrecht

Aims. We track the time evolution of planet traps and snowlines in a viscously evolving protoplanetary disk using an opacity table that accounts for the composition of the dust material. Methods. We coupled a dynamical and thermodynamical…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-06 Kévin Baillié , Sébastien Charnoz , Éric Pantin

The weathering crust is a layer of porous ice that can form at the surface of an ice sheet. It grows and decays in response changing weather and climate conditions, affecting the albedo, the melt rate, and the transport of meltwater across…

Geophysics · Physics 2024-05-06 Tilly Woods , Ian J. Hewitt

Ice-templating is a simple materials processing and shaping route where the growth of crystals from a solvent template the porosity. Although the principles of ice-templating were established a long time ago, it has lured considerable…

Materials Science · Physics 2017-06-20 Sylvain Deville

We describe an experimental apparatus for making detailed morphological observations of the growth of isolated plate-like ice crystals from water vapor. Each crystal develops a plate-on-pedestal (POP) geometry, in which a large, thin,…

Materials Science · Physics 2015-03-04 Kenneth G. Libbrecht

Snow is a porous disordered medium consisting of air and three water phases: ice, vapour and liquid. The ice phase consists of an assemblage of grains, ice matrix, initially arranged over a random load bearing skeleton. The quantitative…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2010-12-22 Anna Carbone , Bernardino M. Chiaia , Barbara Frigo , Christian Turk