Assessing the Resolution Adaptability of the Zhang-McFarlane Cumulus Parameterization With Spatial and Temporal Averaging
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- Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland WA USA, State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing China
- Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland WA USA
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego CA USA
- NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA USA
Realistic modeling of cumulus convection at fine model resolutions (a few to a few tens of km) is problematic since it requires the cumulus scheme to adapt to higher resolution than they were originally designed for (~100 km). To solve this problem, we implement the spatial averaging method proposed in Xiao et al. (2015) and also propose a temporal averaging method for the large-scale convective available potential energy (CAPE) tendency in the Zhang-McFarlane (ZM) cumulus parameterization. The resolution adaptability of the original ZM scheme, the scheme with spatial averaging, and the scheme with both spatial and temporal averaging at 4-32 km resolution is assessed using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, by comparing with Cloud Resolving Model (CRM) results. We find that the original ZM scheme has very poor resolution adaptability, with sub-grid convective transport and precipitation increasing significantly as the resolution increases. The spatial averaging method improves the resolution adaptability of the ZM scheme and better conserves the total transport of moist static energy and total precipitation. With the temporal averaging method, the resolution adaptability of the scheme is further improved, with sub-grid convective precipitation becoming smaller than resolved precipitation for resolution higher than 8 km, which is consistent with the results from the CRM simulation. Both the spatial distribution and time series of precipitation are improved with the spatial and temporal averaging methods. The results may be helpful for developing resolution adaptability for other cumulus parameterizations that are based on quasi-equilibrium assumption.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Atmospheric System Research; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830; 91437101
- OSTI ID:
- 1410703
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1410704; OSTI ID: 1415700
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-125729
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Journal Name: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems Vol. 9 Journal Issue: 7; ISSN 1942-2466
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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