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Title: The Challenge of Identifying Controls on Cloud Properties and Precipitation Onset for Cumulus Congestus Sampled During MC3E

Journal Article · · Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States)
  2. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
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Here, the controls on precipitation onset and the transition from shallow cumulus to congestus are explored using a suite of 16 large–eddy simulations based on the 25 May 2011 event from the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E). The thermodynamic variables in the model are relaxed at various timescales to observationally constrained temperature and moisture profiles in order to better reproduce the observed behavior of precipitation onset and total precipitation. Three of the simulations stand out as best matching the precipitation observations and also perform well for independent comparisons of cloud fraction, precipitation area fraction, and evolution of cloud top occurrence. All three simulations exhibit a destabilization over time, which leads to a transition to deeper clouds, but the evolution of traditional stability metrics by themselves is not able to explain differences in the simulations. Conditionally sampled cloud properties (in particular, mean cloud buoyancy), however, do elicit differences among the simulations. The inability of environmental profiles alone to discern subtle differences among the simulations and the usefulness of conditionally sampled model quantities argue for hybrid observational/modeling approaches. These combined approaches enable a more complete physical understanding of cloud systems by combining observational sampling of time–varying three–dimensional meteorological quantities and cloud properties, along with detailed representation of cloud microphysical and dynamical processes from numerical models.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704
OSTI ID:
1454808
Report Number(s):
BNL-205751-2018-JAAM
Journal Information:
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 123, Issue 6; ISSN 2169-897X
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 2 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (1)

xsacrgridrhi.c0 v1.0 from 20181228
  • Wang, Meng; Giangrande, Scott; Hardin, Joseph
  • Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Archive, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (US); ARM Data Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States) https://doi.org/10.5439/1578281
dataset January 2020

Figures / Tables (17)

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Table 1(p. 63)table Table 1
Table 2(p. 64)table Table 2
Table 3(p. 65)table Table 3

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