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Title: Seasonal Cycle of Idealized Polar Clouds: Large Eddy Simulations Driven by a GCM

Journal Article · · Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]
  1. Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States)
  2. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States); California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL)
  3. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  4. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  5. Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States). Scripps Inst. of Oceanography
+ Show Author Affiliations

The uncertainty in polar cloud feedbacks calls for process understanding of the cloud response to climate warming. As an initial step toward improved process understanding, we investigate the seasonal cycle of polar clouds in the current climate by adopting a novel modeling framework using large eddy simulations (LES), which explicitly resolve cloud dynamics. Resolved horizontal and vertical advection of heat and moisture from an idealized GCM are prescribed as forcing in the LES. The LES are also forced with prescribed sea ice thickness, but surface temperature, atmospheric temperature, and moisture evolve freely without nudging. A semigray radiative transfer scheme without water vapor and cloud feedbacks allows the GCM and LES to achieve closed energy budgets more easily than would be possible with more complex schemes. This enables the mean states in the two models to be consistently compared, without the added complications from interaction with more comprehensive radiation. Furthermore, we show that the LES closely follow the GCM seasonal cycle, and the seasonal cycle of low-level clouds in the LES resembles observations: maximum cloud liquid occurs in late summer and early autumn, and winter clouds are dominated by ice in the upper troposphere. Large-scale advection of moisture provides the main source of water vapor for the liquid-containing clouds in summer, while a temperature advection peak in winter makes the atmosphere relatively dry and reduces cloud condensate. The framework we develop and employ can be used broadly for studying cloud processes and the response of polar clouds to climate warming.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1847560
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-167085
Journal Information:
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Journal Name: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 14; ISSN 1942-2466
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Arctic
GCM
LES
cloud
mixed-phase cloud
seasonal cycle