Winter Lace
by Darren Fisher
Title
Winter Lace
Artist
Darren Fisher
Medium
Photograph - Photography/ Digital Art
Description
A macro capture of a snowflake captured with a macro lens and a shallow depth of field. I love the elegance of the capture and the added texture and bokeh really enhance the image.
Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets (about 10 �m in diameter) freeze. These droplets are able to remain liquid at temperatures lower than -18 �C (0 �F), because to freeze, a few molecules in the droplet need to get together by chance to form an arrangement similar to that in an ice lattice, then the droplet freezes around this "nucleus." Experiments show that this "homogeneous" nucleation of cloud droplets only occurs at temperatures lower than -35 �C (-31 �F).[3] In warmer clouds an aerosol particle or "ice nucleus" must be present in (or in contact with) the droplet to act as a nucleus. The particles that make ice nuclei are very rare compared to nuclei upon which liquid cloud droplets form; however, it is not understood what makes them efficient. Clays, desert dust and biological particles may be effective,[4] although to what extent is unclear. Artificial nuclei include particles of silver iodide and dry ice, and these are used to stimulate precipitation in cloud seeding.[5]
Once a droplet has frozen, it grows in the supersaturated environment, which is one where air is saturated with respect to ice when the temperature is below the freezing point. The droplet then grows by deposition of water molecules in the air (vapor) onto the ice crystal surface where they are collected. Because water droplets are so much more numerous than the ice crystals due to their sheer abundance, the crystals are able to grow to hundreds of micrometers or millimeters in size at the expense of the water droplets. This process is known as the Wegener�Bergeron�Findeisen process. The corresponding depletion of water vapor causes the droplets to evaporate, meaning that the ice crystals grow at the droplets' expense. These large crystals are an efficient source of precipitation, since they f
Uploaded
January 15th, 2014
Statistics
Viewed 777 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 04/17/2024 at 1:17 AM
Embed
Share
Sales Sheet
Similar Images
Comments (9)
Recently Viewed
