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Title: Improved Convective Ice Microphysics Parameterization in the NCAR CAM Model

Journal Article · · Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2020jd034157· OSTI ID:1777900
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5]; ORCiD logo [3]
  1. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences
  2. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences
  3. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). Dept. of Environment and Climate Sciences
  4. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). Dept. of Applied Physics and Mathematics; NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies (GISS), New York, NY (United States)
  5. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States). Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
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Partitioning deep convective cloud condensates into components that sediment and detrain, known to be a challenge for global climate models, is important for cloud vertical distribution and anvil cloud formation. In this study, we address this issue by improving the convective microphysics scheme in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model version 5.3 (CAM5.3). The improvements include: (1) considering sedimentation for cloud ice crystals that do not fall in the original scheme, (2) applying a new terminal velocity parameterization that depends on the environmental conditions for convective snow, (3) adding a new hydrometeor category, “rimed ice,” to the original four-class (cloud liquid, cloud ice, rain, and snow) scheme, and (4) allowing convective clouds to detrain snow particles into stratiform clouds. Results from the default and modified CAM5.3 models were evaluated against observations from the U.S. Department of Energy Tropical Warm Pool-International Cloud Experiment (TWP-ICE) field campaign. The default model overestimates ice amount, which is largely attributed to the underestimation of convective ice particle sedimentation. By considering cloud ice sedimentation and rimed ice particles and applying a new convective snow terminal velocity parameterization, the vertical distribution of ice amount is much improved in the midtroposphere and upper troposphere when compared to observations. The vertical distribution of ice condensate also agrees well with observational best estimates upon considering snow detrainment. Further, comparison with observed convective updrafts reveals that current bulk model fails to reproduce the observed updraft magnitude and occurrence frequency, suggesting spectral distributions be required to simulate the subgrid updraft heterogeneity.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Data Center; Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Contributing Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL); Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0018190; SC0012704; SC0020192
OSTI ID:
1777900
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1798477
Report Number(s):
BNL-221664-2021-JAAM
Journal Information:
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 126, Issue 9; ISSN 2169-897X
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
convective clouds
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microphysics parameterization
terminal velocity
updraft