Entrainment & Mixing

How turbulent mixing reshapes cloud droplet populations

How does mixing reshape droplet populations?

Dry-air mixing can evaporate droplets unevenly, broaden or narrow the droplet-size distribution, and change how a cloud evolves toward rain. I examine when mixing behaves homogeneously or inhomogeneously and which environmental conditions move it between those regimes.

How can particle histories reveal the mixing pathway?

I use high-resolution Lagrangian cloud simulations to follow individual droplets through entrainment events. Their trajectories connect the thermodynamic history of mixing to the evolving droplet-size distribution rather than only its final snapshot.

Selected publications

  • Lim & Hoffmann (2026): Aging of droplet size distribution in stratocumulus clouds: regimes of droplet size distribution evolution. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
  • Lim & Hoffmann (2024): Life cycle evolution of mixing in shallow cumulus clouds. JGR: Atmospheres
  • Lim & Hoffmann (2023): Between broadening and narrowing: How mixing affects the width of the droplet size distribution. JGR: Atmospheres

References