Experimental determination of the connection between cloud droplet size and its dry residue size

The droplet activation process and droplet growth was studied during early stages of the formation of orographically-induced clouds. The experimental results were compared with the results obtained with a closed parcel, adiabatic cloud model. Good agreement was in most cases found between model and measurements with respect to cloud droplet number concentration, cloud droplet solute concentration and particle sizes scavenged due to cloud droplet nucleation. The experimental results were mainly obtained with a new instrument, the droplet aerosol analyser (DAA), which allows the determination of ambient sizes of cloud droplets and interstitial aerosol particles directly connected with the size of its dry residue in a two-parameter data acquisition. The resulting three-dimensional data set (ambient size, dry size, number concentration) was utilised to determine several cloud/aerosol properties, whereof some unique.