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Idealized Simulations of a Squall Line from the MC3E Field Campaign Applying Three Bin Microphysics Schemes: Dynamic and Thermodynamic Structure

Journal Article · · Monthly Weather Review
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [2];  [8];  [1];  [1];  [4];  [1]
  1. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
  2. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington
  3. University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming
  4. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado; University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, Illinois
  5. University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary
  6. McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada
  7. University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota
  8. Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China
+ Show Author Affiliations

The squall line event on May 20, 2011, during the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds (MC3E) field campaign has been simulated by three bin (spectral) microphysics schemes coupled into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Semi-idealized three-dimensional simulations driven by temperature and moisture profiles acquired by a radiosonde released in the pre-convection environment at 1200 UTC in Morris, Oklahoma show that each scheme produced a squall line with features broadly consistent with the observed storm characteristics. However, substantial differences in the details of the simulated dynamic and thermodynamic structure are evident. These differences are attributed to different algorithms and numerical representations of microphysical processes, assumptions of the hydrometeor processes and properties, especially ice particle mass, density, and terminal velocity relationships with size, and the resulting interactions between the microphysics, cold pool, and dynamics. This study shows that different bin microphysics schemes, designed to be conceptually more realistic and thus arguably more accurate than bulk microphysics schemes, still simulate a wide spread of microphysical, thermodynamic, and dynamic characteristics of a squall line, qualitatively similar to the spread of squall line characteristics using various bulk schemes. Future work may focus on improving the representation of ice particle properties in bin schemes to reduce this uncertainty and using the similar assumptions for all schemes to isolate the impact of physics from numerics.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1430449
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-129639; KP1701000
Journal Information:
Monthly Weather Review, Vol. 145, Issue 12; ISSN 0027-0644
Publisher:
American Meteorological Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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