Collecting, shipping, storing, and imaging snow crystals and ice grains with low‐temperature scanning electron microscopy

Erbe, Eric F.; Rango, A.; Foster, James L.; Josberger, Edward G.; Pooley, Christopher; Wergin, William P.

doi:10.1002/jemt.10383

Cited by 35 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Domine et al (2003) may have observed growth steps on surface hoar crystals studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and whose height was about 1 µm, but it is not even totally certain that the structures observed were growth steps, and they did not seem to originate from a crystal edge, but rather from a grain boundary, so that the representativity of this observation may be limited. Indeed, the numerous SEM studies of snow crystals (Wergin et al, 1996;Domine et al, 2003;Erbe et al, 2003;Legagneux et al, 2003) usually do not show any structures that can be convincingly attributed to growth steps, which suggest that these could be undetectable by SEM and much smaller than 1 µm in most cases.…”

Section: Application To Snowpacks and Cloudsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of the ice growth rate on the incorporation of gaseous HCl

Dominé

Rauzy

2004

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Ice crystals were grown in the laboratory at −15 • C, at different growth rates and in the presence of a partial pressure of HCl of 1.63×10 −3 Pa, to test whether the ice growth rate influences the amount of HCl taken up, X HCl , as predicted by the ice growth mechanism of Domine and Thibert (1996). The plot of HCl concentration in ice as a function of growth rate has the aspect predicted by that mechanism: X HCl decreases with increasing growth rate, from a value that depends on thermodynamic equilibrium to a value that depends only on kinetic factors. The height of the growth steps of the ice crystals is determined to be about 150 nm from these experiments. We discuss that the application of these laboratory experiments to cloud ice crystals and to snow metamorphism is not quantitatively possible at this stage, because the physical variables that determine crystal growth in nature, and in particular the step height, are not known. Qualitative applications are attempted for HCl and HNO 3 incorporation in cloud ice and snowpack crystals.

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Section: Application To Snowpacks and Cloudsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of the ice growth rate on the incorporation of gaseous HCl

Dominé

Rauzy

2004

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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“…Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has long been recognized as an attractive alternative for observing ice morphology (Cross, 1968;Rango et al, 2000;Erbe et al, 2003), because of its resolution and depth of field. However, the high vacuum conditions and coating procedures usually employed to prepare samples do not permit observation of surface dynamics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scanning electron microscopy and molecular dynamics of surfaces of growing and ablating hexagonal ice crystals

2010

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Abstract. We present the first clearly resolved observations of surfaces of growing and ablating hexagonal ice crystals using variable-pressure scanning electron microscopy. The ice surface develops trans-prismatic strands, separated from one another by distances of 5-10 µm. The strands are present at a wide range of supersaturations, but are most pronounced at temperatures near the frost point. Pyramidal facets consistent with Miller-Bravais indices of 1011, and possibly also 2021, are associated with ice growth under these conditions. A molecular-dynamics model of a free-standing ice I h nanocolumn containing 8400 water molecules does not develop trans-prismatic strands, suggesting these features originate at larger spatial or temporal scales. The possible relevance of these surface features to cirrus ice is discussed.

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“…We therefore estimate that the overall uncertainty of SSA measurement of wet snow using DUFISSS is at the most 11 %, if the LWC is not known. Finally, SSA can also be defined as the surface area per unit volume of ice or water, rather than per unit mass of snow (Fierz et al, 2009). It is then conveniently expressed in mm −1 .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding (2), the work of Brzoska et al (1998) showed that snow subjected to flash freezing, a process much more prone to produce structural changes than the slow freezing used here, did not lead to any detectable structural change. Furthermore, scanning electromicrographs by Erbe et al (2003) (their Fig. 9) and Wergin et al (1995) (their Fig.…”

Section: Experimental Protocolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the specific surface area of wet snow using 1310 nm reflectance

2014

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Abstract. The specific surface area (SSA) of snow can be used as an objective measurement of grain size and is therefore a central variable to describe snow physical properties such as albedo. Snow SSA can now be easily measured in the field using optical methods based on infrared reflectance. However, existing optical methods have only been validated for dry snow. Here we test the possibility to use the DU-FISSS instrument, based on the measurement of the 1310 nm reflectance of snow with an integrating sphere, to measure the SSA of wet snow. We perform cold room experiments where we measure the SSA of a wet snow sample, freeze it and measure it again, to quantify the difference in reflectance between frozen and wet snow. We study snow samples in the SSA range 12-37 m 2 kg −1 and in the mass liquid water content (LWC) range 5-32 %. We conclude that the SSA of wet snow can be obtained from the measurement of its 1310 nm reflectance using three simple steps. In most cases, the SSA thus obtained is less than 10 % different from the value that would have been obtained if the sample had been considered dry, so that the three simple steps constitute a minor correction. We also run two optical models to interpret the results, but no model reproduces correctly the water-ice distribution in wet snow, so that their predictions of wet snow reflectance are imperfect. The correction on the determination of wet snow SSA using the DUFISSS instrument gives an overall uncertainty better than 11 %, even if the LWC is unknown. If SSA is expressed as a surface to volume ratio (e.g., in mm −1 ), the uncertainty is then 13 % because of additional uncertainties in the determination of the volume of ice and water when the LWC is unknown.

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Collecting, shipping, storing, and imaging snow crystals and ice grains with low‐temperature scanning electron microscopy

Cited by 35 publications

References 38 publications

Influence of the ice growth rate on the incorporation of gaseous HCl

Influence of the ice growth rate on the incorporation of gaseous HCl

Scanning electron microscopy and molecular dynamics of surfaces of growing and ablating hexagonal ice crystals

Measuring the specific surface area of wet snow using 1310 nm reflectance

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