TY - JOUR
T1 - Sensitivity of Numerical Simulations of a Mesoscale Convective System to Ice Hydrometeors in Bulk Microphysical Parameterization
AU - Pu, Zhaoxia
AU - Lin, Chao
AU - Dong, Xiquan
AU - Krueger, Steven K.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Office of Science (BER), US Department of Energy Grant no. DE-SC0007060 (Z. Pu, C. Lin, and S. Krueger) and DE-SC0008468 (X. Dong). The first author (Pu) was also supported by NASA NEWS program Award NNX15AD14G. Oklahoma Mesonet data were obtained from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program sponsored by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Climate and Environmental Sciences Division. The authors are grateful to the NCAR WRF model development group. The computing support from the Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) at the University of Utah is also gratefully acknowledged. Funding was provided by Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant no. NNX15AD14G)
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2019/5/1
Y1 - 2019/5/1
N2 - Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) and their associated cloud properties are the important factors that influence the aviation activities, yet they present a forecasting challenge in numerical weather prediction. In this study, the sensitivity of numerical simulations of an MCS over the US Southern Great Plains to ice hydrometeors in bulk microphysics (MP) schemes has been investigated using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. It is found that the simulated structure, life cycle, cloud coverage, and precipitation of the convective system as well as its associated cold pools are sensitive to three selected MP schemes, namely, the WRF single-moment 6-class (WSM6), WRF double-moment 6-class (WDM6, with the double-moment treatment of warm-rain only), and Morrison double-moment (MORR, with the double-moment representation of both warm-rain and ice) schemes. Compared with observations, the WRF simulation with WSM6 only produces a less organized convection structure with a short lifetime, while WDM6 can produce the structure and length of the MCS very well. Both simulations heavily underestimate the precipitation amount, the height of the radar echo top, and stratiform cloud fractions. With MORR, the model performs well in predicting the lifetime, cloud coverage, echo top, and precipitation amount of the convection. Overall results demonstrate the importance of including double-moment representation of ice hydrometeors along with warm-rain. Additional experiments are performed to further examine the role of ice hydrometeors in numerical simulations of the MCS. Results indicate that replacing graupel with hail in the MORR scheme improves the prediction of the convective structure, especially in the convective core region.
AB - Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) and their associated cloud properties are the important factors that influence the aviation activities, yet they present a forecasting challenge in numerical weather prediction. In this study, the sensitivity of numerical simulations of an MCS over the US Southern Great Plains to ice hydrometeors in bulk microphysics (MP) schemes has been investigated using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. It is found that the simulated structure, life cycle, cloud coverage, and precipitation of the convective system as well as its associated cold pools are sensitive to three selected MP schemes, namely, the WRF single-moment 6-class (WSM6), WRF double-moment 6-class (WDM6, with the double-moment treatment of warm-rain only), and Morrison double-moment (MORR, with the double-moment representation of both warm-rain and ice) schemes. Compared with observations, the WRF simulation with WSM6 only produces a less organized convection structure with a short lifetime, while WDM6 can produce the structure and length of the MCS very well. Both simulations heavily underestimate the precipitation amount, the height of the radar echo top, and stratiform cloud fractions. With MORR, the model performs well in predicting the lifetime, cloud coverage, echo top, and precipitation amount of the convection. Overall results demonstrate the importance of including double-moment representation of ice hydrometeors along with warm-rain. Additional experiments are performed to further examine the role of ice hydrometeors in numerical simulations of the MCS. Results indicate that replacing graupel with hail in the MORR scheme improves the prediction of the convective structure, especially in the convective core region.
KW - Microphysical parameterization
KW - WRF model
KW - cloud
KW - mesoscale convective systems
KW - precipitation
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U2 - 10.1007/s00024-018-1787-z
DO - 10.1007/s00024-018-1787-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85065747265
SN - 0033-4553
VL - 176
SP - 2097
EP - 2120
JO - Pure and Applied Geophysics
JF - Pure and Applied Geophysics
IS - 5
ER -