Millimeter Wavelength Cloud Radar (MMCR) data from December 1996 to December 2010, collected at the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program Southern Great Plains (SGP) site, are used to examine the diurnal cycle of hydrometeor occurrence. These data are categorized into clouds (-40 dBZe ≤ reflectivity < -10 dBZe), drizzle and light precipitation (-10 dBZe ≤ reflectivity < 10 dBZe), and heavy precipitation (reflectivity ≥ 10 dBZe). The same criteria are implemented for the observation-equivalent reflectivity calculated by feeding outputs from a Multiscale Modeling Framework (MMF) climate model into a radar simulator. The MMF model consists of the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model with conventional cloud parameterizations replaced by a cloud-resolving model. We find that a radar simulator combined with the simple reflectivity categories can be an effective approach for evaluating diurnal variations in model hydrometeor occurrence. It is shown that the MMF only marginally captures observed increases in the occurrence of boundary layer clouds after sunrise in spring and autumn and does not capture diurnal changes in boundary layer clouds during the summer. Above the boundary layer, the MMF captures reasonably well diurnal variations in the vertical structure of clouds and light and heavy precipitation in the summer but not in the spring.
Zhao, Wei, et al. "The diurnal cycle of clouds and precipitation at the ARM SGP site: Cloud radar observations and simulations from the multiscale modeling framework." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, vol. 122, no. 14, Jul. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD026353
Zhao, Wei, Marchand, Roger, & Fu, Qiang (2017). The diurnal cycle of clouds and precipitation at the ARM SGP site: Cloud radar observations and simulations from the multiscale modeling framework. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 122(14). https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD026353
Zhao, Wei, Marchand, Roger, and Fu, Qiang, "The diurnal cycle of clouds and precipitation at the ARM SGP site: Cloud radar observations and simulations from the multiscale modeling framework," Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 122, no. 14 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD026353
@article{osti_1423787,
author = {Zhao, Wei and Marchand, Roger and Fu, Qiang},
title = {The diurnal cycle of clouds and precipitation at the ARM SGP site: Cloud radar observations and simulations from the multiscale modeling framework},
annote = {Millimeter Wavelength Cloud Radar (MMCR) data from December 1996 to December 2010, collected at the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program Southern Great Plains (SGP) site, are used to examine the diurnal cycle of hydrometeor occurrence. These data are categorized into clouds (-40 dBZe ≤ reflectivity e), drizzle and light precipitation (-10 dBZe ≤ reflectivity e), and heavy precipitation (reflectivity ≥ 10 dBZe). The same criteria are implemented for the observation-equivalent reflectivity calculated by feeding outputs from a Multiscale Modeling Framework (MMF) climate model into a radar simulator. The MMF model consists of the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model with conventional cloud parameterizations replaced by a cloud-resolving model. We find that a radar simulator combined with the simple reflectivity categories can be an effective approach for evaluating diurnal variations in model hydrometeor occurrence. It is shown that the MMF only marginally captures observed increases in the occurrence of boundary layer clouds after sunrise in spring and autumn and does not capture diurnal changes in boundary layer clouds during the summer. Above the boundary layer, the MMF captures reasonably well diurnal variations in the vertical structure of clouds and light and heavy precipitation in the summer but not in the spring.},
doi = {10.1002/2016JD026353},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1423787},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres},
issn = {ISSN 2169-897X},
number = {14},
volume = {122},
place = {United States},
publisher = {American Geophysical Union},
year = {2017},
month = {07}}