Simulations of Clouds and Sensitivity Study by Weather Research and Forecast Model for Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Case 4

Conference · Fri Mar 18 04:00:00 EST 2005

OSTI ID:841524

Wu, J; Zhang, M

One of the large errors in general circulation models (GCMs) cloud simulations is from the mid-latitude, synoptic-scale frontal cloud systems. Now, with the availability of the cloud observations from Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) 2000 cloud Intensive Operational Period (IOP) and other observational datasets, the community is able to document the model biases in comparison with the observations and make progress in development of better cloud schemes in models. Xie et al. (2004) documented the errors in midlatitude frontal cloud simulations for ARM Case 4 by single-column models (SCMs) and cloud resolving models (CRMs). According to them, the errors in the model simulated cloud field might be caused by following reasons: (1) lacking of sub-grid scale variability; (2) lacking of organized mesoscale cyclonic advection of hydrometeors behind a moving cyclone which may play important role to generate the clouds there. Mesoscale model, however, can be used to better under stand these controls on the subgrid variability of clouds. Few studies have focused on applying mesoscale models to the forecasting of cloud properties. Weaver et al. (2004) used a mesoscale model RAMS to study the frontal clouds for ARM Case 4 and documented the dynamical controls on the sub-GCM-grid-scale cloud variability.

• Research Organization: Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC) (US)
• OSTI ID: 841524
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ADVECTION
ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION
AVAILABILITY
CLOUDS
FORECASTING
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
GENERAL CIRCULATIONS MODELS
RADIATIONS
SENSITIVITY
WEATHER