Evaluation of Cloud and Precipitation Response to Aerosols in WRF-Chem With Satellite Observations

Zhoukun Liu, Minghuai Wang*, Daniel Rosenfeld, Yannian Zhu, Heming Bai, Yang Cao, Yuan Liang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Large uncertainties remain in the key physical processes associated with aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) in models. With the help of A-Train satellite observations, the Weather Research and Forecasting Model with chemistry (WRF-Chem) model with two microphysical schemes, Morrison (MOR) and Lin (LIN), is evaluated by quantifying the susceptibilities of cloud properties, precipitation characteristics, and warm rain process to aerosols for marine stratocumulus over the Southeast Pacific. We reduced the meteorological control on clouds by stratifying them using cloud geometric thickness. Our results show that while the cloud fraction increases with increasing cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) in observation and simulations, the susceptibility of cloud fraction to Nd in simulations are only half of that in the observation. The cloud liquid water path increases with Nd in simulations but decreases slightly in the observation. Compared with the observations, the warm rain in WRF-Chem simulations is generally less suppressed by aerosols, and it initiates at a much smaller cloud droplet effective radius (Re). The conversion from cloud to rain is substantially faster in simulations compared to satellite observations. The conversion rate accelerates at Re ≈ 13 μm in observations and at Re ≈ 9 μm in simulations.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2020JD033108
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Volume125
Issue number18
DOIs
StatePublished - 27 Sep 2020

Bibliographical note

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©2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

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