Mass and thermal accommodation during gas-liquid condensation of water

In this Letter we report, for the first time, direct and simultaneous determinations of mass and thermal accommodation coefficients for water vapor condensation in air, based on the observation of droplet growth kinetics in an expansion cloud chamber. Our experiments exclude values below 0.85 for the thermal and below 0.4 for the mass accommodation coefficients at temperatures ranging from 250 to 290 K. Both coefficients are likely to be 1 for all studied conditions. Previously available experimental data on the mass accommodation coefficient for water span about 3 orders of magnitude. Our results provide new and firm insight to cloud microphysics and consequently to the global radiative balance.