Megacryometeor

Quality 0.50 · 2 views · Updated 2 months ago

Type of precipitation

title: "Megacryometeor" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["precipitation"] description: "Type of precipitation" topic_path: "general/precipitation" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacryometeor" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Type of precipitation ::

A megacryometeor is a very large chunk of ice which, despite sharing many textural, hydro-chemical, and isotopic features found in large hailstones, is formed under unusual atmospheric conditions which clearly differ from those of the cumulonimbus cloud scenario (i.e. clear-sky conditions). They are sometimes called huge hailstones, but do not need to form under thunderstorm conditions unlike hailstorms. Jesús Martínez-Frías, a planetary geologist and astrobiologist at Institute of Geosciences (, IGEO) in the Spanish National Research Council (, CSIC) in Madrid, pioneered research into megacryometeors.

Mass and size

More than 50 megacryometeors have been recorded since the year 2000. They vary in mass between 0.5 kg to several tens of kilograms. One in Brazil weighed in at more than 50 kg. Chunks about 2 m in size also fell in Scotland on 13 August 1849.

Formation

The process that creates megacryometeors is not completely understood yet, mainly with respect to the atmospheric dynamics necessary to produce them. They may have a similar mechanism of formation that leads to the production of hailstones. Scientific studies show that their composition matches normal tropospheric rainwater for the areas in which they fall. In addition, megacryometeors also display textural variations of the ice surface and hydro-chemical and isotopic heterogeneity in its composition, which gives potential evidence to a complex formation process in the lower atmosphere. It is known that they do not form from airplane toilet leakage because the large chunks of ice that occasionally do fall from airliners are distinctly blue due to the disinfectant used by them (hence their common name of "blue ice").

Some have speculated that these ice chunks must have fallen from aircraft fuselages after plain water ice accumulating on those aircraft through normal atmospheric conditions has simply broken loose. However, similar events also occurred prior to the invention of aircraft. Studies indicate that the metrological fluctuations in tropopause, associated with hydration of the lower stratosphere and stratospheric cooling, can be related to their formation. They are sometimes confused with meteors because they can leave small impact craters, though they form in the atmosphere and not from outer space.

References

References

  1. "Ficha de Jesús Martínez Frías en el Directorio del IGEO de CSIC, 30 de enero de 2021".
  2. [http://jornal.valeparaibano.com.br/1997/07/23/geral/gelo.html Gelo caindo do céu assusta moradores] {{webarchive. link. (2007-09-27 {{in lang). pt.
  3. (2007). "Comet/asteroid impacts and human society: an interdisciplinary approach". Springer.
  4. [http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=506 The Peculiar Phenomenon of Megacryometeors] by Alan Bellows.
  5. (2005). "Oxygen and Hydrogen Isotopic Signatures of Large Atmospheric Ice Conglomerations". Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry.
  6. (2006). "Megacryometeors: Distribution on Earth and Current Research". Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment.
  7. (2008). "Monitoring the fall of large atmospheric ice conglomerations: a multianalytical approach to the study of the Mejorada del Campo megacryometeor". Journal of Environmental Monitoring.
  8. William R. Corliss. (1983). "Tornados, dark days, anomalous precipitation, and related weather phenomena: a catalog of geophysical anomalies". Sourcebook Project.
  9. [http://www.unilibro.es/find_buy_es/libro/editorial_ariel_s_a_/riesgos_naturales.asp?sku=360743&idaff=0 Riesgos Naturales, by Olcina Santos, J. and Ayala-Carcedo, J.]
  10. (2010). "Micro-Raman spectroscopic study of extremely large atmospheric ice conglomerations (megacryometeors)". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

precipitation