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Investigating simulated convective and stratiform structures of monsoonal convection using TWP-ICE observations

 
Poster PDF

Authors

Edward Zipser — University of Utah
Sally A. McFarlane — U.S. Department of Energy
Ann M. Fridlind — NASA - Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Andrew Ackerman — NASA - Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Ben Shipway — UK Meteorological Office
Adrian Hill — UK Meteorological Office
Jiwen Fan — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Scott Matthew Collis — Argonne National Laboratory
Adam Varble — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Jean-Pierre Chaboureau — University of Toulouse, France/CNRS
Jean-Pierre Pinty — University of Toulouse, France/CNRS

Category

Precipitation

Description

The 2.5-km stratiform rain rate normalized cumulative distribution is shown in (a) with models represented by symbols and observations by the thick black line. Thin black lines show the observational error bounds. The cumulative contribution of stratiform rain rates to total stratiform rainfall is shown in (b). Observations are derived from the C-POL radar.
Essential to improving general circulation models is improving cloud-resolving models that guide single-column models. From previous work, we have found that nine separate TWP-ICE simulations of monsoonal convective systems did not reproduce the observed distribution of radar reflectivity above the melting level. Differences across models were found to be strongly dependent on assumed graupel and snow hydrometeor properties and less dependent on ice water content. Furthermore, all simulations vastly underestimate stratiform rain rate regardless of dynamical framework or bulk microphysics scheme. To further investigate these findings, several important properties relevant to the distribution and evolution of radar reflectivity and rain rates are compared to observations. Updraft vertical velocity is compared with dual Doppler analyses, hydrometeor fall speeds with S-band profiler Doppler velocity, and rain median volume diameters with radar-based observational retrievals. These comparisons give insight into the model processes that are leading to incorrect three-dimensional radar reflectivity structure and lower-than-observed stratiform rain rates.