An explanation for the existence of supercooled water at the top of cold clouds

Aircraft measurements in many cold cloud systems have found a narrow layer of supercooled water to exist at the cloud top, even at temperatures colder than -30°C. We show in this paper that the imbalance between the condensate supply rate and the bulk ice crystal mass growth rate at a wide range of temperatures and updraft speeds is sufficient to produce this liquid layer near cloud top because of the unique property that the ice crystals located there are small. -from Authors