Quantitative Modeling of Faceted Ice Crystal Growth from Water Vapor Using Cellular Automata
Figure 6
An example showing our numerical modeling of a laboratory-grown ice crystal. The composite image in (a) shows five successive views of a thin plate-like crystal growing on the end of a slender ice needle, with a 50 m scale bar. The crystal is shown in a side view, with illumination from behind. The composite image in (b) shows our numerical model of the same crystal. Here the brightness around the crystal is proportional to supersaturation. The data points in (c) shows measurements of the plate and needle radii (the latter at a distance of 50 m from the base of the plate) as a function of time. The lines in the graph are from the growth of the model crystal. The inset image in (c) shows a more frontal view of a similar plate-on-needle crystal with a plate radius of 80 m, showing the thin sectored-plate morphology. Note that at earlier times ( in the graph) the crystal was growing from a tapered needle to a column with nearly uniform radius along its length. The time axes were shifted, so the plate began growing at for both the real and model crystals.
