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Title: A new WRF-Chem treatment for studying regional-scale impacts of cloud processes on aerosol and trace gases in parameterized cumuli

Journal Article · · Geoscientific Model Development (Online)
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  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  2. NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA (United States)
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A new treatment of cloud effects on aerosol and trace gases within parameterized shallow and deep convection, and aerosol effects on cloud droplet number, has been implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) version 3.2.1 that can be used to better understand the aerosol life cycle over regional to synoptic scales. The modifications to the model include treatment of the cloud droplet number mixing ratio; key cloud microphysical and macrophysical parameters (including the updraft fractional area, updraft and downdraft mass fluxes, and entrainment) averaged over the population of shallow clouds, or a single deep convective cloud; and vertical transport, activation/resuspension, aqueous chemistry, and wet removal of aerosol and trace gases in warm clouds. These changes have been implemented in both the WRF-Chem chemistry packages as well as the Kain–Fritsch (KF) cumulus parameterization that has been modified to better represent shallow convective clouds. Testing of the modified WRF-Chem has been completed using observations from the Cumulus Humilis Aerosol Processing Study (CHAPS). The simulation results are used to investigate the impact of cloud–aerosol interactions on regional-scale transport of black carbon (BC), organic aerosol (OA), and sulfate aerosol. Based on the simulations presented here, changes in the column-integrated BC can be as large as –50% when cloud–aerosol interactions are considered (due largely to wet removal), or as large as +40% for sulfate under non-precipitating conditions due to sulfate production in the parameterized clouds. The modifications to WRF-Chem are found to account for changes in the cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) and changes in the chemical composition of cloud droplet residuals in a way that is consistent with observations collected during CHAPS. Efforts are currently underway to port the changes described here to the latest version of WRF-Chem, and it is anticipated that they will be included in a future public release of WRF-Chem.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC06-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1195588
Journal Information:
Geoscientific Model Development (Online), Vol. 8, Issue 2; ISSN 1991-9603
Publisher:
European Geosciences UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 36 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (12)

Impact of In-Cloud Aqueous Processes on the Chemistry and Transport of Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds: Impact of In-Cloud Processes on BVOC journal October 2017
Effects of increasing surface reflectivity on aerosol, radiation, and cloud interactions in the urban atmosphere journal November 2019
Examination of in-cloud sulfate chemistry using a different model initialization journal December 2018
Efficient In-Cloud Removal of Aerosols by Deep Convection journal January 2019
Evaluating the Response of Summertime Surface Sulfate to Hydroclimate Variations in the Continental United States: Role of Meteorological Inputs in the GEOS-Chem Model journal February 2019
New particle formation leads to cloud dimming journal May 2018
Quality of the Governing Temperature Variables in WRF in relation to Simulation of Primary Biological Aerosols journal January 2015
Implementation of Aerosol-Cloud Interaction within WRF-CHIMERE Online Coupled Model: Evaluation and Investigation of the Indirect Radiative Effect from Anthropogenic Emission Reduction on the Benelux Union journal January 2019
Aerosol Indirect Effects on the Predicted Precipitation in a Global Weather Forecasting Model journal July 2019
Simulating Arctic Ice Clouds during Spring Using an Advanced Ice Cloud Microphysics in the WRF Model journal July 2019
The role of aerosol–radiation–cloud interactions in linking anthropogenic pollution over southern west Africa and dust emission over the Sahara journal January 2019
Improvements to the WRF-Chem 3.5.1 model for quasi-hemispheric simulations of aerosols and ozone in the Arctic journal January 2017

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