Improvement of Moist and Radiative Processes in Highly Parallel Atmospheric General Circulation Models: Validation and Development
Research on designing an integrated moist process parameterization package was carried. This work began with a study that coupled an ensemble of cloud models to a boundary layer model to examine the feasibility of such a methodology for linking boundary layer and cumulus parameterization schemes. The approach proved feasible, prompting research to design and evaluate a coupled parameterization package for GCMS. This research contributed to the development of an Integrated Cumulus Ensemble-Turbulence (ICET) parameterization package. This package incorporates a higher-order turbulence boundary layer that feeds information concerning updraft properties and the variances of temperature and water vapor to the cloud parameterizations. The cumulus ensemble model has been developed, and initial sensitivity tests have been performed in the single column model (SCM) version of CCM2. It is currently being coupled to a convective wake/gust front model. The major function of the convective wake/gust front model is to simulate the partitioning of the boundary layer into disturbed and undisturbed regions. A second function of this model is to predict the nonlinear enhancement of surface to air sensible heat and moisture fluxes that occur in convective regimes due to correlations between winds and anomalously cold, dry air from downdrafts in the gust front region. The third function of the convective wake/gust front model is to predict the amount of undisturbed boundary layer air lifted by the leading edge of the wake and the height to which this air is lifted. The development of the wake/gust front model has been completed, and it has done well in initial testing as a stand-alone component. The current task, to be completed by the end of the funding period, is to tie the wake model to a cumulus ensemble model and to install both components into the single column model version of CCM3 for evaluation. Another area of parametrization research has been focused on the representation of cloud radiative properties. An examination of the CCM2 simulation characteristics indicated that many surface temperature and warm land precipitation problems were linked to deficiencies in the specification of cloud optical properties, which allowed too much shortwave radiation to reach the surface. In-cloud liquid water path was statically specified in the CCM2 using a "prescribed, meridionally and height varying, but time independent, cloud liquid water density profile, which was analytically determined from a meridionally specified liquid water scale height. Single-column model integrations were conducted to explore alternative formulations for the cloud liquid water path diagnostic, converging on an approach that employs a similar, but state-dependent technique for determining in-cloud liquid water concentration. The new formulation, results in significant improvements to both the top-of- atmosphere and surface energy budgets. In particular, when this scheme is incorporated in the three-dimensional GCM, simulated July surface temperature biases are substantially reduced, where summer precipitation over the northern hemisphere continents, as well as precipitation rates over most all warm land areas, is more consistent with observations". This improved parameterization has been incorporated in the CCM3.
- Research Organization:
- University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AI05-92ER61471
- OSTI ID:
- 7213
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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