scholarly journals The relative importance of macrophysical and cloud albedo changes for aerosol-induced radiative effects in closed-cell stratocumulus: insight from the modelling of a case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 5155-5183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Grosvenor ◽  
Paul R. Field ◽  
Adrian A. Hill ◽  
Benjamin J. Shipway

Abstract. Aerosol–cloud interactions are explored using 1 km simulations of a case study of predominantly closed-cell SE Pacific stratocumulus clouds. The simulations include realistic meteorology along with newly implemented cloud microphysics and sub-grid cloud schemes. The model was critically assessed against observations of liquid water path (LWP), broadband fluxes, cloud fraction (fc), droplet number concentrations (Nd), thermodynamic profiles, and radar reflectivities.Aerosol loading sensitivity tests showed that at low aerosol loadings, changes to aerosol affected shortwave fluxes equally through changes to cloud macrophysical characteristics (LWP, fc) and cloud albedo changes due solely to Nd changes. However, at high aerosol loadings, only the Nd albedo change was important. Evidence was also provided to show that a treatment of sub-grid clouds is as important as order of magnitude changes in aerosol loading for the accurate simulation of stratocumulus at this grid resolution.Overall, the control model demonstrated a credible ability to reproduce observations, suggesting that many of the important physical processes for accurately simulating these clouds are represented within the model and giving some confidence in the predictions of the model concerning stratocumulus and the impact of aerosol. For example, the control run was able to reproduce the shape and magnitude of the observed diurnal cycle of domain mean LWP to within  ∼  10 g m−2 for the nighttime, but with an overestimate for the daytime of up to 30 g m−2. The latter was attributed to the uniform aerosol fields imposed on the model, which meant that the model failed to include the low-Nd mode that was observed further offshore, preventing the LWP removal through precipitation that likely occurred in reality. The boundary layer was too low by around 260 m, which was attributed to the driving global model analysis. The shapes and sizes of the observed bands of clouds and open-cell-like regions of low areal cloud cover were qualitatively captured. The daytime fc frequency distribution was reproduced to within Δfc = 0.04 for fc >  ∼ 0.7 as was the domain mean nighttime fc (at a single time) to within Δfc = 0.02. Frequency distributions of shortwave top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) fluxes from the satellite were well represented by the model, with only a slight underestimate of the mean by 15 %; this was attributed to near–shore aerosol concentrations that were too low for the particular times of the satellite overpasses. TOA long-wave flux distributions were close to those from the satellite with agreement of the mean value to within 0.4 %. From comparisons of Nd distributions to those from the satellite, it was found that the Nd mode from the model agreed with the higher of the two observed modes to within  ∼  15 %.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Grosvenor ◽  
Paul R. Field ◽  
Adrian A. Hill ◽  
Benjamin J. Shipway

Abstract. Aerosol-cloud interactions are explored using 1 km resolution simulations of SE Pacific stratocumulus clouds that include realistic meteorology along with newly implemented cloud microphysics and sub-grid cloud schemes. The model was critically assessed against observations of Liquid Water Path (LWP), broadband fluxes, cloud fraction (fc), droplet number concentrations (Nd) and radar reflectivities. Aerosol loading sensitivity tests showed that at low aerosol loadings, changes to aerosol affected shortwave fluxes equally through changes to cloud macrophysical charateristics (LWP, fc) and cloud albedo changes due solely to Nd changes. However, at high aerosol loadings, only the Nd albedo change was important. Evidence was also provided to show that a treatment of sub-grid clouds is as important as order of magnitude changes in aerosol loading for the accurate simulation of stratocumulus at this grid resolution. Overall, the control model demonstrated a credible ability to reproduce observations suggesting that many of the important physical processes for accurately simulating these clouds are represented within the model and giving some confidence in the predictions of the model concerning stratocumulus and the impact of aerosol. For example, the control run was able to reproduce the shape and magnitude of the observed diurnal cycle of domain mean LWP to within ~ 10 g m−2 for the nighttime, but with an overestimate for the daytime of up to 30 g m−2. The latter was attributed to the uniform aerosol fields imposed on the model, which meant that the model failed to include the low Nd mode that was observed further offshore, preventing the LWP removal through precipitation that likely occurred in reality. The boundary layer was too low by around 260 m, which was attributed to the driving global model analysis. The shapes and sizes of the observed bands of clouds and open-cell-like regions of low areal cloud cover were qualitatively captured. The daytime fc frequency distribution was reproduced to within fc = 0.04 for fc > ~ 0.7 as was the domain mean nighttime fc (at a single time) to within fc = 0.02. Frequency distributions of shortwave top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) fluxes from satellite were well represented by the model with only a slight underestimate of the mean by 15 %; this was attributed to near--shore aerosol concentrations that were too low for the particular times of the satellite overpasses. TOA longwave flux distributions were close to those from satellite with agreement of the mean value to within 0.4 %. From comparisons of Nd distributions to those from satellite it was found that the Nd mode from the model agreed with the higher of the two observed modes to within ~ 15 %.


2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (12) ◽  
pp. 4493-4499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech W. Grabowski

Abstract A simple methodology is proposed to extract impacts of cloud microphysics on macrophysical cloud-field properties in large-eddy simulations of shallow convection. These impacts are typically difficult to assess because of natural variability of the simulated cloud field. The idea is to use two sets of thermodynamic variables driven by different microphysical schemes or by a single scheme with different parameters as applied here. The first set is coupled to the dynamics as in the standard model, and the second set is applied diagnostically—that is, driven by the flow but without the feedback on the flow dynamics. Having the two schemes operating in the same flow pattern allows for extracting the impact with high confidence. For illustration, the method is applied to simulations of precipitating shallow convection applying a simple bulk representation of warm-rain processes. Because of natural variability, the traditional approach provides an uncertain estimate of the impact of cloud droplet concentration on the mean cloud-field rainfall even with an ensemble of simulations. In contrast, the impact is well constrained while applying the new methodology. The method can even detect minuscule changes of the mean cloud cover and liquid water path despite their large temporal fluctuations and different evolutions within the ensemble.


2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (12) ◽  
pp. 3633-3651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingfang Jiang ◽  
Shouping Wang

Abstract The impact of gravity waves on marine stratocumulus is investigated using a large-eddy simulation model initialized with sounding profiles composited from the Variability of American Monsoon Systems (VAMOS) Ocean–Cloud–Atmosphere–Land Study Regional Experiment (VOCALS-Rex) aircraft measurements and forced by convergence or divergence that mimics mesoscale diurnal, semidiurnal, and quarter-diurnal waves. These simulations suggest that wave-induced vertical motion can dramatically modify the cloud albedo and morphology through nonlinear cloud–aerosol–precipitation–circulation–turbulence feedback. In general, wave-induced ascent tends to increase the liquid water path (LWP) and the cloud albedo. With a proper aerosol number concentration, the increase in the LWP leads to enhanced precipitation, which triggers or strengthens mesoscale circulations in the boundary layer and accelerates cloud cellularization. Precipitation also tends to create a decoupling structure by weakening the turbulence in the subcloud layer. Wave-induced descent decreases the cloud albedo by dissipating clouds and forcing a transition from overcast to scattered clouds or from closed to open cells. The overall effect of gravity waves on the cloud variability and morphology depends on the cloud property, aerosol concentration, and wave characteristics. In several simulations, a transition from closed to open cells occurs under the influence of gravity waves, implying that some of the pockets of clouds (POCs) observed over open oceans may be related to gravity wave activities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 75 (10) ◽  
pp. 3365-3379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo C. Abade ◽  
Wojciech W. Grabowski ◽  
Hanna Pawlowska

This paper discusses the effects of cloud turbulence, turbulent entrainment, and entrained cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activation on the evolution of the cloud droplet size spectrum. We simulate an ensemble of idealized turbulent cloud parcels that are subject to entrainment events modeled as a random process. Entrainment events, subsequent turbulent mixing inside the parcel, supersaturation fluctuations, and the resulting stochastic droplet activation and growth by condensation are simulated using a Monte Carlo scheme. Quantities characterizing the turbulence intensity, entrainment rate, CCN concentration, and the mean fraction of environmental air entrained in an event are all specified as independent external parameters. Cloud microphysics is described by applying Lagrangian particles, the so-called superdroplets. These are either unactivated CCN or cloud droplets that grow from activated CCN. The model accounts for the addition of environmental CCN into the cloud by entraining eddies at the cloud edge. Turbulent mixing of the entrained dry air with cloudy air is described using the classical linear relaxation to the mean model. We show that turbulence plays an important role in aiding entrained CCN to activate, and thus broadening the droplet size distribution. These findings are consistent with previous large-eddy simulations (LESs) that consider the impact of variable droplet growth histories on the droplet size spectra in small cumuli. The scheme developed in this work is ready to be used as a stochastic subgrid-scale scheme in LESs of natural clouds.


2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (01) ◽  
pp. 263-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson Antunes ◽  
Christine Fricker ◽  
Fabrice Guillemin ◽  
Philippe Robert

In this paper, motivated by the problem of the coexistence on transmission links of telecommunications networks of elastic and unresponsive traffic, we study the impact on the busy period of an M/M/1 queue of a small perturbation in the service rate. The perturbation depends upon an independent stationary process (X(t)) and is quantified by means of a parameter ε ≪ 1. We specifically compute the two first terms of the power series expansion in ε of the mean value of the busy period duration. This allows us to study the validity of the reduced service rate approximation, which consists in comparing the perturbed M/M/1 queue with the M/M/1 queue whose service rate is constant and equal to the mean value of the perturbation. For the first term of the expansion, the two systems are equivalent. For the second term, the situation is more complex and it is shown that the correlations of the environment process (X(t)) play a key role.


2018 ◽  
pp. 5-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Podeur ◽  
Damien Merdrignac ◽  
Morgan Behrel ◽  
Kostia Roncin ◽  
Caroline Fonti ◽  
...  

A tool dedicated to assess fuel economy induced by kite propulsion has been developed. To produce reliable results, computations must be performed on a period over several years, for several routes and for several ships. In order to accurately represent the impact of meteorological trends variations on the exploitability of the kite towing concept, a time domain approach of the problem has been used. This tool is based on the weather database provided by the ECMWF. Two sailing strategies can be selected for assessing the performance of the kite system. For a given kite area, the simulation can be run either at constant speed or at constant engine power. A validation has been made, showing that predicted consumption is close from in-situ measurement. It shows an underestimation of 11.9% of the mean fuel consumption mainly due to auxiliary consumption and added resistance in waves that were not taken into account. To conclude, a case study is performed on a 2200 TEU container ship equipped with an 800m² kite on a transatlantic route between Halifax and Le Havre. Round trip simulations, performed over 5 years of navigation, show that the total economy predicted is of around 12% at a speed of 16 knots and around 6.5% at a speed of 19 knots.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (03) ◽  
pp. 2050007
Author(s):  
SEAN ELVIDGE

This paper further investigates the Talent versus Luck (TvL) model described by [Pluchino et al. Talent versus luck: The role of randomness in success and failure, Adv. Complex Syst. 21 (2018) 1850014] which models the relationship between ‘talent’ and ‘luck’ on the impact of an individuals career. It is shown that the model is very sensitive to both random sampling and the choice of value for the input parameters. Running the model repeatedly with the same set of input parameters gives a range of output values of over 50% of the mean value. The sensitivity of the inputs of the model is analyzed using a variance-based approach based upon generating Sobol sequences of quasi-random numbers. When using the model to look at the talent associated with an individual who has the maximum capital over a model run it has been shown that the choice for the standard deviation of the talent distribution contributes to 67% of the model variability. When investigating the maximum amount of capital returned by the model the probability of a lucky event at any given epoch has the largest impact on the model, almost three times more than any other individual parameter. Consequently, during the analysis of the model results one must keep in mind the impact that only small changes in the input parameters can have on the model output.


2021 ◽  
Vol 893 (1) ◽  
pp. 012023
Author(s):  
Puji R A Sibuea ◽  
Dewi R Agriamah ◽  
Edi Riawan ◽  
Rusmawan Suwarman ◽  
Atika Lubis

Abstract Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) used in the design of hydrological structures reliabilities and safety which its value is obtained from the Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP). The objectives of this study are to estimate PMP and PMF value in Upper Citarum Watershed and understand the impact from different PMP value to PMF value with two scenarios those are Scenario A and B. Scenario A will calculate the PMP value from each Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) rainfall data grid and Scenario B calculate the PMP value from the mean area rainfall. PMP value will be obtained by the statistical Hershfield method, and the PMF will be obtained by employed the PMP value as the input data in Gridded Surface Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA) hydrologic model. Model simulation results for PMF hydrographs from both scenarios show that spatial distribution of rainfall in the Upper Citarum watershed will affect the calculated discharge and whether Scenario A or B can be applied in the study area for PMP duration equal or higher than 72 hours. PMF peak discharge for Scenario A is averagely 13,12% larger than Scenario B.


2021 ◽  
Vol 156 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S119-S120
Author(s):  
S A Hart ◽  
J R Wiencek

Abstract Introduction/Objective Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute document GP44 recommends samples avoid temperatures >22°C during sample transport and storage. Outdoor courier lockboxes used in external sample transport can experience extreme temperatures (>40°C) in the summer. Ice (frozen at -20°C) and cold (refrigerated at 4-8°C) packs can be used to reduce internal lockbox temperatures during hot summer days. Unfortunately, there are no universally accepted instructions to maintain internal lockbox temperatures during these conditions. Therefore, our goal was to elucidate the impact of placing ice and cold packs at two specific time points to mitigate external summer temperatures in two commercially available outdoor courier lockboxes used at our institution. Methods/Case Report Two pairs of uniquely manufactured courier lockboxes (steel vs. urethane polymer) were placed outside in direct sunlight in Nashville, Tennessee during the second week of June 2021. Ambient outdoor and lockbox temperatures were monitored using data loggers during a four-day cycle. Each type of lockbox design had a control with no ice or cold packs. These controls were then compared to each experimental, paired lockbox with four ice packs placed at 8am and replaced with four cold packs at 4pm. Results (if a Case Study enter NA) The mean ambient outdoor temperature over these four days was 27.7°C (range: 22.2-39.8°C). Temperatures within the steel and urethane polymer lockboxes without ice or cold packs was 28.3°C (range: 22.4-40.8°C) and 31.6°C (range: 23.8-41.0°C), respectively. The addition of four ice packs at 8am and replaced with four cold packs at 4pm reduced temperatures in the steel box to 24.3°C (range: 17.4-27.9°C) whereas in the urethane polymer box temperatures were reduced to 13.4°C (range: 6.6-18.1°C). Conclusion Temperatures inside outdoor lockboxes can increase in summer commonly above the outdoor ambient temperature. Standardizing instructions for ice and cold packs can reduce internal outdoor courier lockbox temperatures during summer months, especially in urethane polymer lockboxes.


Author(s):  
Anandita Srivastava ◽  
Nalini Kataria

Background: The present investigation was envisaged to find out the impact of extreme hot environmental temperature period (ETP) on marker enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism in male and female non-descript sheep of various age groups i.e. 4 to 13 months from arid tracts of Rajasthan. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PDH) and malate dehydrogenase (MDH) marker enzymes of carbohydrate metabolism were considered for study. Methods: During the period October 2016-June 2017 blood samples were collected to harvest sera for spectrophotometric method from 240 healthy animals selected from private slaughter house during moderate and extreme hot environmental temperature periods (ETPs). The mean values of markers attained during moderate ETP were reckoned as the control. It was 10.00 ± 0.10 UL-1 and 42.00±1.00 respectively. Conclusion: The mean value of MDH was significantly (p≤0.05) higher while G-6-PDH significantly (p≤0.05) lowers during extreme hot temperature in comparison to moderate period. Therefore, it could be concluded that variations in enzyme markers were associated with changes in environmental temperatures. Probably ETP were able to produce a profound effect on carbohydrate metabolism in sheep. Therfore it can be suggested that during the period of extreme temperature balanced ration must be provided to the animal along with proper management to decrease the severity of temperature impact.


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