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Title: The Impact of Surface Heterogeneities and Land‐Atmosphere Interactions on Shallow Clouds Over ARM SGP Site

Journal Article · · Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2018MS001286· OSTI ID:1441054
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland Washington USA
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Continental shallow clouds are an important component of the land-atmosphere coupled climate system because of their role in modulating energy and water budgets. The parameterization of these small clouds in climate models presents a significant challenge. In this study, we evaluate the potential impact of subgrid-scale (for climate models) land-atmosphere interactions on shallow clouds using large-eddy simulations (LESs) whose domain size is comparable to that of a typical climate model grid box. We compare LESs that allow for land-atmosphere interactions to ones that artificially suppress all or part of them by smoothing out surface heterogeneities within the domain. The LES domains are coupled to an interactive land surface model and nested inside a mesoscale domain to allow for realistic winds and surface conditions. Three summertime non-precipitating shallow convection cases over the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Facility’s Southern Great Plains (SGP) site are examined. Low-level wind, soil moisture and cloud amount vary significantly among these cases. A consistent increase in cloud water content in all cases is observed when surface heterogeneities and the land-atmosphere interactions they induce in the LES domain are removed. By comparing experiments where only surface flux heterogeneities induced by cloud shadows are removed to the ones where all surface flux heterogeneities are removed, we find that cloud shading-induced surface heterogeneities can have a larger impact on shallow convection than static land surface heterogeneities in our cases. Furthermore, the impact of cloud shading on cloud water content and cloud size is found to depend sensitively on the solar zenith angle. The implications of our findings for shallow cloud and land surface parameterizations in climate models are also discussed.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1441054
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1441055; OSTI ID: 1515820
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-131778
Journal Information:
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Journal Name: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems Vol. 10 Journal Issue: 6; ISSN 1942-2466
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 15 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
LES
land‐atmosphere interaction
continental shallow clouds
climate model biases