Cold pool

In atmospheric science, a cold pool (CP) is a cold pocket of dense air that forms when rain evaporates during intense precipitation e.g. underneath a thunderstorm cloud. Typically, CPs spread at 10 m/s and last 2–3 hours.[1]

Cold pool forming and expanding under a thunderstorm.

Characteristics

CPs spread radially away from the rain event along the surface as a moving gust front. When the gust front passes, CPs cause an increase in wind speed and a sudden drop in specific humidity and in air temperature. In large-eddy simulations, they reach 10 km in radius, whereas, in reality, they can become as large as 50–100 km in radius.[2] Collisions between multiple CPs can trigger the formation of a new thunderstorm event, and thereby form a new CP.[3]

See also

References
  1. Tompkins, Adrian M. (October 20, 2000). "Organization of Tropical Convection in Low Vertical Wind Shears:The Role of Cold Pools". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. 58 (6): 529. doi:10.1175/1520-0469(2001)058<0529:OOTCIL>2.0.CO;2.
  2. Zuidema, Paquita; Torri, Giuseppe; Muller, Caroline (November 14, 2017). "A Survey of Precipitation-Induced Atmospheric Cold Pools over Oceans and Their Interactions with the Larger-Scale Environment". Surv Geophys. 38 (6): 1283–1305. Bibcode:2017SGeo...38.1283Z. doi:10.1007/s10712-017-9447-x.
  3. Haerter, Jan O.; Böing, Steven J.; Henneberg, Olga; Nissen, Silas Boye (May 23, 2019). "Circling in on Convective Organization". Geophysical Research Letters. 46 (12): 7024–7034. arXiv:1810.05518. Bibcode:2019GeoRL..46.7024H. doi:10.1029/2019GL082092. S2CID 181406163.
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