Some considerations about snow crystallogenesis

TL;DR

This paper explores how analyzing the shape of individual snow crystals can reveal their thermal history, proposing models based on growth mechanisms and identifying exceptions where surface melting influences habitus.

Contribution

It introduces a method to relate snow crystal shapes to their thermal history using experimental observations and growth mechanism models.

Findings

Growth mechanisms differ for basal and prismatic surfaces.

Temperature-habitus relations can be established for most snow crystals.

Surface melting likely affects habitus in certain temperature ranges.

Abstract

We investigate about the possibility of knowing the thermal history of each snow crystal through the analysis of its individual habitus. Supposition, based on experimental observations, that prevailing growth mechanisms of basal and prismatic surfaces are helicoidal and 2D nucleation-spread, respectively, make possible to establish the relation temperature-habitus for all the different kinds of crystals, with the exception of plates in the interval -3^\circ C < T < 0^\circ C, where probably the surface melting plays an important role on the habitus development.