Enhanced cold cloud clearing by pulsed CO(2) lasers

We report that clearing a channel in clouds consisting of ice crystals requires much lower laser energy input to the channel than that required to clear a channel in droplet clouds. This result depends on the difference in water vapor saturation concentrations over liquid water and ice. A channel cleared in ice particle clouds will be resistant to recondensation that rapidly obscures the channel in droplet clouds. We model the conditions in which recondensation will obscure the channel in liquid and ice water droplet clouds.