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The evaporation (sublimation) of ice and snow has a major impact on global climate, since the amount of ice and snow determines Earth's albedo. Yet, due to their complex geometry with several sharp regions which are singular for the evaporation, the precise evaporation dynamics of snow and ice crystals remains challenging to predict. Here, we study the sublimation of snowflakes and pointy ice drops. We show that the evaporation rates of water and ice drops are similar; they are both limited by the diffusive transport of the vapour. This allows us to predict ice and snowflake evaporation quantitatively by solving the diffusive free-boundary problem, which correctly predicts the rapid self-similar evolution of sharp edges and points. Beyond providing a conceptual picture to understand the sublimation of ice crystals, our results are more generally applicable to other diffusion problems such as the dissolution of salt crystals or pharmaceuticals.
Pubmed ID: 30305638
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Multi paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth generation programming language developed by MathWorks. Allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages, including C, C++, Java, Fortran and Python. Used to explore and visualize ideas and collaborate across disciplines including signal and image processing, communications, control systems, and computational finance.
View all literature mentionsOpen source Java based image processing software program designed for scientific multidimensional images. ImageJ has been transformed to ImageJ2 application to improve data engine to be sufficient to analyze modern datasets.
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