Modelling study on the formation of pockets of open cells in marine stratocumulus cloud during CLARIFY

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Simpson ◽  
Tom Choularton
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Model ◽  
Direct Interaction ◽  
Cloud Microphysics ◽  
Large Eddy Simulations ◽  
Radiation Budget ◽  
Microphysics Scheme ◽  
Marine Stratocumulus ◽  
Open Cell ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Large Eddy

<p>Due to the wide spread nature of marine stratocumulus cloud they have a significant impact on the Earth’s radiation budget. Such clouds are sensitive to the presence of aerosol, which can promote the break-up of a cloud deck into pockets of open cell convection (POC). The transition from a cloud deck to pockets of open cells changes the overall cloud albedo thus affecting the Earth’s radiation budget. The representation of stratocumulus cloud and the transition to POCs is poorly represented in current climate and weather models. This study aims to improve understanding of this process using extensive in-situ measurements made during the CLARIFY campaign of stratocumulus cloud decks, transition areas between overcast and open cell cloud structures as well as areas of POCs, to inform and compare to large-eddy simulations.</p><p>A variety of different aerosol situations occurred during CLARIFY, combinations of polluted/clean boundary layer and polluted/clean conditions above the cloud layer. Large-eddy simulations are conducted to investigate the sensitivity of clouds to changes in the observed aerosol conditions with a particular focus on whether or not the change in aerosol initiates cloud breakup.</p><p>The MetOffice NERC Cloud model (MONC) is used to preform the large-eddy simulations and employs the CASIM cloud microphysics scheme which includes activation of aerosol particles to cloud drops. Such a model set-up allows direct interaction between aerosols and clouds. Observations from CLARIFY are used to initialise and evaluate model simulations.</p>

scholarly journals Large-eddy simulation of radiation fog with comprehensive two-moment bulk microphysics: impact of different aerosol activation and condensation parameterizations

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 7165-7181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Schwenkel ◽  
Björn Maronga
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Water ◽  
Liquid Water Content ◽  
Cloud Microphysics ◽  
Large Eddy Simulations ◽  
Activation Process ◽  
Radiation Fog ◽  
Microphysics Scheme ◽  
Large Eddy ◽  
Explicit Analysis ◽  
Aerosol Activation

Abstract. In this paper we study the influence of the cloud microphysical parameterization, namely the effect of different methods for calculating the supersaturation and aerosol activation, on the structure and life cycle of radiation fog in large-eddy simulations. For this purpose we investigate a well-documented deep fog case as observed at Cabauw (the Netherlands) using high-resolution large-eddy simulations with a comprehensive bulk cloud microphysics scheme. By comparing saturation adjustment with a diagnostic and a prognostic method for calculating supersaturation (while neglecting the activation process), we find that, even though assumptions for saturation adjustment are violated, the expected overestimation of the liquid water mixing ratio is negligible. By additionally considering activation, however, our results indicate that saturation adjustment, due to approximating the underlying supersaturation, leads to a higher droplet concentration and hence significantly higher liquid water content in the fog layer, while diagnostic and prognostic methods yield comparable results. Furthermore, the effect of different droplet number concentrations is investigated, induced by using different common activation schemes. We find, in line with previous studies, a positive feedback between the droplet number concentration (as a consequence of the applied activation schemes) and strength of the fog layer (defined by its vertical extent and amount of liquid water). Furthermore, we perform an explicit analysis of the budgets of condensation, evaporation, sedimentation and advection in order to assess the height-dependent contribution of the individual processes on the development phases.

Randomness in the amount of rain in LES with Lagrangian microphysics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Zmijewski ◽  
Piotr Dziekan ◽  
Hanna Pawlowska
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Process ◽  
Cloud Model ◽  
Cloud Microphysics ◽  
Large Eddy Simulations ◽  
Lagrangian Particle ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Popular Method ◽  
Large Eddy ◽  
The University ◽  
Spatial Cell

<p>Lagrangian, particle-based models are an emerging method for detailed modeling of cloud microphysics. In these models, a relatively small number of "super-droplets" is used to represent all hydrometeors. Each super-droplet represents vast number of hydrometeors that have the same properties. The most popular method for solving collision-coalescence in these particle-based models is the all-or-nothing algorithm. In this algorithm, collision-coalescence of droplets within a spatial cell is modeled with a stochastic process. The number of trials is proportional to the number of super-droplets, which is significantly lower than the number of hydrometeors. Therefore the variance of the number of hydrometeors with a given size is higher in the super-droplet algorithm than it would be if every droplet was modeled separately. The increase of this variability depends on the number of super-droplets. We use the University of Warsaw Lagrangian Cloud Model (UWLCM) to analyse how the randomness in the collision-coalescence algorithm affects the amount of precipitation in large eddy simulations of warm clouds.</p>

Quantifying how model assumptions affect aerosol-cloud interactions in large-eddy simulations of warm stratocumulus clouds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Schwarz ◽  
Julien Savre ◽  
Annica Ekman
Keyword(s):  
Number Concentration ◽  
Large Eddy Simulations ◽  
Radiation Balance ◽  
Marine Stratocumulus ◽  
Aerosol Cloud ◽  
Reference Simulation ◽  
Model Aerosol ◽  
Large Eddy ◽  
Stratocumulus Clouds ◽  
Climate Interactions

<p>Subtropical low-level marine stratocumulus clouds effectively reflect downwelling shortwave radiation while having a small effect on outgoing longwave radiation. Hence, they impose a strong negative net radiative effect on the Earth’s radiation balance. The optical and microphysical properties of these clouds are susceptible to anthropogenic changes in aerosol abundance. Although these aerosol-cloud-climate interactions (ACI) are generally explicitly treated in state-of-the-art Earth System Models (ESMs), they are accountable for large uncertainties in current climate projections.</p><p>Here, we present preliminary work where we exploit Large-Eddy-Simulations (LES) of warm stratocumulus clouds to identify and constrain processes and model assumptions that affect the response of cloud droplet number concentration (N<sub>d</sub>) to changes in aerosol number concentration (N<sub>a</sub>). Our results are based on simulations with the MISU-MIT Cloud-Aerosol (MIMICA, Savre et al., 2014) LES, which has two-moment bulk microphysics (Seifert and Beheng, 2001) and a two-moment aerosol scheme (Ekman et al., 2006). The reference simulation is based on observations made during the Dynamics and Chemistry of Marine Stratocumulus Field Study (DYCOMS-II, Stevens et al., 2003) which were used extensively during previous LES studies (e.g., Ackerman et al., 2009).</p><p>Starting from the reference simulation, we conduct sensitivity experiments to examine how the susceptibility (β=dln(N<sub>d</sub>)/dln(N<sub>a</sub>)) changes depending on different model setups. We run the model with fixed and interactive aerosol concentrations, with and without saturation adjustment, with different aerosol populations, and with different model parameter choices. Our early results suggest that β is sensitive to these choices and can vary roughly between 0.6 to 0.9 depending on the setup. The overall purpose of our study is to guide future model developments and evaluations concerning aerosol-cloud-climate interactions.  </p><p> </p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>Ackerman, A. S., vanZanten, M. C., Stevens, B., Savic-Jovcic, V., Bretherton, C. S., Chlond, A., et al. (2009). Large-Eddy Simulations of a Drizzling, Stratocumulus-Topped Marine Boundary Layer. Monthly Weather Review, 137(3), 1083–1110. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008MWR2582.1</p><p>Ekman, A. M. L., Wang, C., Ström, J., & Krejci, R. (2006). Explicit Simulation of Aerosol Physics in a Cloud-Resolving Model: Aerosol Transport and Processing in the Free Troposphere. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 63(2), 682–696. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS3645.1</p><p>Savre, J., Ekman, A. M. L., & Svensson, G. (2014). Technical note: Introduction to MIMICA, a large-eddy simulation solver for cloudy planetary boundary layers. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 6(3), 630–649. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013MS000292</p><p>Stevens, B., Lenschow, D. H., Vali, G., Gerber, H., Bandy, A., Blomquist, B., et al. (2003). Dynamics and Chemistry of Marine Stratocumulus—DYCOMS-II. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 84(5), 579–594. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-84-5-579</p>

Characterizing precipitation in convective cloud regimes in the trades with the polarimetric C-band radar POLDIRAD

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hagen ◽  
Florian Ewald ◽  
Silke Groß ◽  
Qiang Li ◽  
Lothar Oswald ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Temporal Evolution ◽  
Convective Cloud ◽  
Weather Radar ◽  
Cloud Microphysics ◽  
Radiation Budget ◽  
Precipitation Pattern ◽  
Aircraft Measurements ◽  
The Earth

<p>Low-level clouds in the trade regions play an important role in the Earth’s climate system since they have a considerable influence on the Earth’s radiation budget. However, the understanding of the coupling between cloud dynamics, cloud microphysics, and mesoscale organization is limited. This results in a large uncertainty in current climate predictions. Despite the importance, observations in these regions are limited. Geostationary satellites cannot provide high resolution three-dimensional details of clouds and precipitation. Polar orbiting satellites like the A-Train satellites Cloudsat and Calipso or the upcoming EarthCARE satellite do provide detailed profiles of cloud properties, but the temporal evolution cannot be observed. On the other hand, long range weather radar observations can provide both, high spatial and temporal observations, however not many weather radar do cover the trades.</p><p>During the Eurec4a campaign DLRs C-band polarimetric weather radar POLDIRAD was installed on the island of Barbados. The scope of the radar measurements is manifold:</p><p>- POLDIRAD will provide high resolution observations of the different mesoscale cloud patterns as observed from satellites: Flowers, Gravel, Fish, and Sugar. Will the mesoscale organization have an influence on observable microphysical properties?</p><p>- POLDIRAD will put the detailed measurements by aircraft (in situ and remote sensing) into a greater context. How are the aircraft measurements related to the spatial distribution of the precipitation pattern? How are the aircraft measurements related to the temporal evolution of the precipitation pattern?</p><p>- POLDIRAD will put the observed profiles of clouds and precipitation at the Barbados Cloud Observatory BCO at Deebles Point into a greater context. How are the profile measurements related to the spatial distribution of the precipitation pattern? How are the profile measurements related to the temporal evolution of the precipitation pattern?</p>

scholarly journals Statistical properties of a stochastic model of eddy hopping

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Izumi Saito ◽  
Takeshi Watanabe ◽  
Toshiyuki Gotoh
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Model ◽  
Reference Data ◽  
Cloud Model ◽  
Computational Cost ◽  
Statistical Properties ◽  
Large Eddy Simulations ◽  
Cloud Droplets ◽  
Large Eddy ◽  
Typical Parameter ◽  
Proper Scaling

Abstract. Statistical properties are investigated for the stochastic model of eddy hopping, which is a novel cloud microphysical model that accounts for the effect of the supersaturation fluctuation at unresolved scales on the growth of cloud droplets and on spectral broadening. It is shown that the model fails to reproduce a proper scaling for a certain range of parameters, resulting in a deviation of the model prediction from the reference data taken from direct numerical simulations and large-eddy simulations (LESs). Corrections to the model are introduced so that the corrected model can accurately reproduce the reference data with the proper scaling. In addition, a possible simplification of the model is discussed, which may contribute to a reduction in computational cost while keeping the statistical properties almost unchanged in the typical parameter range for the model implementation in the LES Lagrangian cloud model.

An evaluation of size-resolved cloud microphysics scheme numerics for use with radar observations Part II: Condensation and evaporation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyunho Lee ◽  
Ann M. Fridlind ◽  
Andrew S. Ackerman
Keyword(s):  
Weather Forecasting ◽  
Cloud Microphysics ◽  
Model Framework ◽  
Microphysics Scheme ◽  
Climate Change Research ◽  
Numerical Diffusion ◽  
Vertical Advection ◽  
Large Eddy ◽  
Fundamental Process ◽  
Turbulence Effects

AbstractAccurate numerical modeling of clouds and precipitation is essential for weather forecasting and climate change research. While size-resolved (bin) cloud microphysics models predict particle size distributions without imposing shapes, results are subject to artificial size distribution broadening owing to numerical diffusion associated with various processes. Whereas Part 1 addressed collision-coalescence, here we investigate numerical diffusion that occurs in solving condensation and evaporation. In a parcel model framework, all of the numerical schemes examined converge to one solution of condensation and evaporation as the mass grid is refined, and the advection-based schemes are recommended over the reassigning schemes. Including Eulerian vertical advection in a column limits the convergence to some extent, but that limitation occurs at a sufficiently fine mass grid, and the number of iterations in solving vertical advection should be minimized to reduce numerical diffusion. Insubstantial numerical diffusion in solving condensation can be amplified if collision-coalescence is also active, which in turn can be substantially diminished if turbulence effects on collision are incorporated. Large-eddy simulations of a drizzling stratocumulus field reveal that changes in moments of Doppler spectra obtained using different mass grids are consistent with those obtained from the simplified framework, and that spectral moments obtained using a mass grid designed to effectively reduce numerical diffusion are generally closer to observations. Notable differences between the simulations and observations still exist, and our results suggest a need to consider whether factors other than numerical diffusion in the fundamental process schemes employed can cause such differences.

scholarly journals Characteristics of vertical velocity in marine stratocumulus: comparison of large eddy simulations with observations

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 045020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huan Guo ◽  
Yangang Liu ◽  
Peter H Daum ◽  
Gunnar I Senum ◽  
Wei-Kuo Tao
Keyword(s):  
Vertical Velocity ◽  
Large Eddy Simulations ◽  
Marine Stratocumulus ◽  
Large Eddy

scholarly journals On the Application of the Dynamic Smagorinsky Model to Large-Eddy Simulations of the Cloud-Topped Atmospheric Boundary Layer

2006 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 526-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. P. Kirkpatrick ◽  
A. S. Ackerman ◽  
D. E. Stevens ◽  
N. N. Mansour
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Layer ◽  
Atmospheric Boundary Layer ◽  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Potential Temperature ◽  
Large Eddy Simulations ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Subgrid Scale ◽  
Smagorinsky Model ◽  
Marine Stratocumulus ◽  
Large Eddy

Abstract In this paper the dynamic Smagorinsky model originally developed for engineering flows is adapted for simulations of the cloud-topped atmospheric boundary layer in which an anelastic form of the governing equations is used. The adapted model accounts for local buoyancy sources, vertical density stratification, and poor resolution close to the surface and calculates additional model coefficients for the subgrid-scale fluxes of potential temperature and total water mixing ratio. Results obtained with the dynamic model are compared with those obtained using two nondynamic models for simulations of a nocturnal marine stratocumulus cloud deck observed during the first research flight of the second Dynamics and Chemistry of Marine Stratocumulus (DYCOMS-II) field experiment. The dynamic Smagorinsky model is found to give better agreement with the observations for all parameters and statistics. The dynamic model also gives improved spatial convergence and resolution independence over the nondynamic models. The good results obtained with the dynamic model appear to be due primarily to the fact that it calculates minimal subgrid-scale fluxes at the inversion. Based on other results in the literature, it is suggested that entrainment in the DYCOMS-II case is due predominantly to isolated mixing events associated with overturning internal waves. While the behavior of the dynamic model is consistent with this entrainment mechanism, a similar tendency to switch off subgrid-scale fluxes at an interface is also observed in a case in which gradient transport by small-scale eddies has been found to be important. This indicates that there may be problems associated with the application of the dynamic model close to flow interfaces. One issue here involves the plane-averaging procedure used to stabilize the model, which is not justified when the averaging plane intersects a deforming interface. More fundamental, however, is that the behavior may be due to insufficient resolution in this region of the flow. The implications of this are discussed with reference to both dynamic and nondynamic subgrid-scale models, and a new approach to turbulence modeling for large-eddy simulations is proposed.

scholarly journals Extracting Microphysical Impacts in Large-Eddy Simulations of Shallow Convection

2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (12) ◽  
pp. 4493-4499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech W. Grabowski
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Cloud Droplet ◽  
Cloud Microphysics ◽  
Natural Variability ◽  
Large Eddy Simulations ◽  
Shallow Convection ◽  
Liquid Water Path ◽  
Large Eddy ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Impact

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.

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