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Developing a simulator-based satellite dataset for using machine learning techniques to derive aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions in models and observations in a consistent framework

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1984697· OSTI ID:1984697
Aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions (ACPI) remain a major uncertainty in understanding the Earth’s radiation budget and water cycle (including extremes). After decades of active research, various observationally based metrics have been developed to constrain ACPI in Earth System Models (ESMs), but direct comparison of model and data estimates can confound scientific understanding because limitations and uncertainties in sampling and retrieval procedures may combine with model deficiencies in process representations of ACPI to obstruct understanding. Furthermore, conventional ACPI metrics often vary from one regime to another, and the ACPI process representation in ESMs is also typically derived based on only a limited area/regime (even though the parameterization applies globally). To bridge the gap between models and data and to correctly describe ACPI in all regimes, we propose to construct a new CALIPSO-CloudSat merged dataset that is produced by the same algorithms used in satellite simulators in ESMs, and to use machine learning techniques to derive new ACPI metrics that can be accurately estimated by satellites and can provide meaningful constraints on cloud microphysical process representations in ESMs. The dataset will include measured and retrieved variables for aerosol, cloud, and precipitation from CALIPSO and CloudSat, and environmental variables from meteorological reanalysis. The data will be used to train a neural network to construct the ACPI metrics as a function of environmental conditions. The new ACPI formula will be used to constrain the ACPI in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM), and to augment/reformulate the ACPI process representation in the E3SM to improve the simulation of the evolution of the atmosphere under different environmental conditions.
Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1984697
Report Number(s):
PNNL--30561
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English