On the Distribution and Continuity of Water Substance in Atmospheric Circulations

The conservation and distribution of water substance in atmospheric circulations is considered within a frame of continuity principles, model air flows, and models of microphysical processes. The simplest considerations of precipitation involve its vertical distribution in an updraft column, where condensate appears immediately as precipitation with uniform terminal fallspeed. The study also treats steady two-dimensional air circulations in which time-dependent distributions of water vapor, cloud and precipitation respond to model microphysical processes. The approach throughout is essentially kinematic, although results provide numerous insights into the dynamical properties of a cloudy or stormy atmosphere. Water distributions are explained in relation to the air’s horizontal divergence, vertical velocity and compressibility, and physical pictures are presented frequently. The findings are compared with various observations on precipitating weather systems. Detailed summaries of this paper by Sections are presented in Sections 1 and 15.