Roel Neggers

Large‐eddy simulation of the diurnal cycle of shallow cumulus convection over land

SUMMARY Large-eddy simulations of the development of shallow cumulus convection over land are presented. Many characteristics of the cumulus layer previously found in simulations of quasi-steady convection over the sea are found to be reproduced in this more strongly forced, unsteady case. Furthermore, the results are shown to be encouragingly robust, with similar results obtained with eight independent models, and also across a range of numerical resolutions. The datasets produced are already being used in the development and evaluation of parametrizations used in numerical weather-prediction and climate models.

Tropical and subtropical cloud transitions in weather and climate prediction models: the GCSS/WGNE Pacific cross-section intercomparison (GPCI)

AbstractA model evaluation approach is proposed in which weather and climate prediction models are analyzed along a Pacific Ocean cross section, from the stratocumulus regions off the coast of California, across the shallow convection dominated trade winds, to the deep convection regions of the ITCZ—the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment Cloud System Study/Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (GCSS/WGNE) Pacific Cross-Section Intercomparison (GPCI). The main goal of GPCI is to evaluate and help understand and improve the representation of tropical and subtropical cloud processes in weather and climate prediction models. In this paper, a detailed analysis of cloud regime transitions along the cross section from the subtropics to the tropics for the season June–July–August of 1998 is presented. This GPCI study confirms many of the typical weather and climate prediction model problems in the representation of clouds: underestimation of clouds in the stratocumulus regime by most models with the co...

Size Statistics of Cumulus Cloud Populations in Large-Eddy Simulations

Abstract Cloud size distributions of shallow cumulus cloud populations are calculated using the large-eddy simulation (LES) approach. A range of different cases is simulated, and the results are compared to observations of real cloud populations. Accordingly, the same algorithm is applied as in observational studies using high-altitude photography or remote sensing. The cloud size density of the simulated cloud populations is described well by a power law at the smaller sizes. This scaling covers roughly one order of magnitude of cloud sizes, with a power-law exponent of −1.70, which is comparable to exponents found in observational studies. A sensitivity test for the resolution suggests that the scaling continues at sizes smaller than the standard grid spacing. In contrast, on the other end, the scaling region is bounded by a distinct scale break. When the cloud size is nondimensionalized by the scale break size, the cloud size densities of all cases collapse. This corroborates the idea of a universal de...

A Dual Mass Flux Framework for Boundary Layer Convection. Part I: Transport

Abstract This study considers the question of what is the least complex bulk mass flux framework that can still conceptually reproduce the smoothly varying coupling between the shallow convective cloud layer and the subcloud mixed layer. To this end, the model complexity of the classic single bulk mass flux scheme is enhanced. Inspired by recent large-eddy simulation results, the authors argue that two relatively minor but key conceptual modifications are already sufficient to achieve this goal: (i) retaining a dry transporting updraft in the moist limit and (ii) applying continuous updraft area partitioning to this dual mass flux (DualM) framework. The dry updraft represents all internal mixed layer updrafts that terminate near the mixed layer top, whereas the moist updraft represents all updrafts that condense and rise out of the mixed layer as buoyant cumulus clouds. The continuous area partitioning between the dry and moist updraft is a function of moist convective inhibition above the mixed layer top...

CGILS: Results from the First Phase of an International Project to Understand the Physical Mechanisms of Low Cloud Feedbacks in Single Column Models

CGILS—the CFMIP-GASS Intercomparison of Large Eddy Models (LESs) and single column models (SCMs)—investigates the mechanisms of cloud feedback in SCMs and LESs under idealized climate change perturbation. This paper describes the CGILS results from 15 SCMs and 8 LES models. Three cloud regimes over the subtropical oceans are studied: shallow cumulus, cumulus under stratocumulus, and well-mixed coastal stratus/stratocumulus. In the stratocumulus and coastal stratus regimes, SCMs without activated shallow convection generally simulated negative cloud feedbacks, while models with active shallow convection generally simulated positive cloud feedbacks. In the shallow cumulus alone regime, this relationship is less clear, likely due to the changes in cloud depth, lateral mixing, and precipitation or a combination of them. The majority of LES models simulated negative cloud feedback in the well-mixed coastal stratus/stratocumulus regime, and positive feedback in the shallow cumulus and stratocumulus regime. A general framework is provided to interpret SCM results: in a warmer climate, the moistening rate of the cloudy layer associated with the surface-based turbulence parameterization is enhanced; together with weaker large-scale subsidence, it causes negative cloud feedback. In contrast, in the warmer climate, the drying rate associated with the shallow convection scheme is enhanced. This causes positive cloud feedback. These mechanisms are summarized as the “NESTS” negative cloud feedback and the “SCOPE” positive cloud feedback (Negative feedback from Surface Turbulence under weaker Subsidence—Shallow Convection PositivE feedback) with the net cloud feedback depending on how the two opposing effects counteract each other. The LES results are consistent with these interpretations.

A Multiparcel Model for Shallow Cumulus Convection

A new parameterization for cumulus convection is formulated, that consists of an ensemble of small, rising parcels. Large eddy simulation (LES) results are used to parameterize the lateral mixing of such a parcel: for the mixing process a relaxation timescale is defined and its value is determined by investigating individual LES clouds. The timescale is found to be nearly independent of cloud depth, which implies that the entrainment rate is inversely proportional to the vertical velocity. As a consequence, a dynamical feedback mechanism is established: the parcel dynamics influence the mixing rate, which, together with the environmental properties, feeds back on the parcel properties and therefore on the parcel dynamics. The multiparcel model is validated with LES fields. The characteristics of the buoyant part of the clouds are reproduced: the decreasing fractional cover and increasing liquid water content with height, the vertical dynamics and mass flux, and the conserved properties and the marginally buoyant state. The model also produces the variability typical for shallow cumulus.

A Dual Mass Flux Framework for Boundary Layer Convection. Part II: Clouds

This paper presents the extension of the eddy diffusivity mass flux (EDMF) framework for turbulent transport into the statistical modeling of boundary layer clouds. The advection‐diffusion decomposition that defines EDMF is projected onto the turbulent distribution as used in the statistical cloud model. Each EDMF component is thus assigned its own independent probability density function (PDF), resulting in an updraft PDF and a diffusive PDF. This double PDF system is configured and integrated in conserved variable space, with the position and orientation of each PDF determined by its unique nature. The parameterization of the associated updraft/diffusion decomposition of variance introduces close ties to the transport scheme; whereas the grid box mean variance is reconstructed using a prognostic variance budget, the variance of the updraft component is parameterized as a function of the spread among various resolved model updrafts. Individual model components and the scheme as a whole are evaluated in detail against large-eddy simulations of a number of prototype subtropical trade wind cases. The results show that various structures in cloud fraction, condensate, and variance are reproduced. The diffusive PDF acts to represent stratiform clouds; the advective PDF represents cumuliform clouds in conditionally unstable layers. This allows representation of complex scenarios in which both cloud forms occur, such as the transitional trade wind regime featuring cumulus rising into stratocumulus.

CONTINUOUS SINGLE-COLUMN MODEL EVALUATION AT A PERMANENT METEOROLOGICAL SUPERSITE

Uncertainties in numerical predictions of weather and climate are often linked to the representation of unresolved processes that act relatively quickly compared to the resolved general circulation. These processes include turbulence, convection, clouds, and radiation. Single‐column model (SCM) simulation of idealized cases and the subsequent evaluation against large-eddy simulation (LES) results has become an often used and relied on method to obtain insight at process level into the behavior of such parameterization schemes; benefits of SCM simulation are the enhanced model transparency and the high computational efficiency. Although this approach has achieved demonstrable success, some shortcomings have been identified; among these, i) the statistical significance and relevance of single idealized case studies might be questioned and ii) the use of observational datasets has been relatively limited. A recently initiated project named the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) Parameterizatio...

An Evaluation of Mass Flux Closures for Diurnal Cycles of Shallow Cumulus

Three closure methods for the mass flux at cloud base in shallow cumulus convection are critically examined for the difficult case of a diurnal cycle over land. The closure methods are first evaluated against large-eddy simulations (LESs) by diagnosing all parameters appearing in the closure equations during simulations of two different observed diurnal cycles of shallow cumulus. This reveals the characteristic behavior of each closure mechanism purely as a result of its core structure. With these results in hand the impact of each closure on the development of the cloudy boundary layer is then studied by its implementation in an offline single-column model of a regional atmospheric climate model. The LES results show that the boundary layer quasi-equilibrium closure typically overestimates the cloud-base mass flux after cloud onset, due to the neglect of significant moisture and temperature tendencies in the subcloud layer. The convective available potential energy (CAPE) adjustment closure is compromised by its limitation to compensating subsidence as the only CAPE breakdown mechanism and the use of a constant adjustment time scale. The closure method using the subcloud convective vertical velocity scale gives the best results, as it catches the time development of the cloud-base mass flux as diagnosed in LES.

Evaluation of Cloud Fraction Simulated by Seven SCMs against the ARM Observations at the SGP Site

AbstractThis study evaluates the performances of seven single-column models (SCMs) by comparing simulated surface precipitation with observations at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program Southern Great Plains (SGP) site from January 1999 to December 2001. Results show that although most SCMs can reproduce the observed precipitation reasonably well, there are significant and interesting differences in their details. In the cold season, the model–observation differences in the frequency and mean intensity of rain events tend to compensate each other for most SCMs. In the warm season, most SCMs produce more rain events in daytime than in nighttime, whereas the observations have more rain events in nighttime. The mean intensities of rain events in these SCMs are much stronger in daytime, but weaker in nighttime, than the observations. The higher frequency of rain events during warm-season daytime in most SCMs is related to the fact that most SCMs produce a spurious precipitation peak around the regime...