A modeling study of the aerosol effects on ice microphysics in convective cloud and precipitation development under different thermodynamic conditions

Abstract

An improved approach for cloud droplet activation process parameterization is proposed that can utilize the empirically determined hygroscopicity information and practically limit the sizes of newly activated droplets. With the implementation of the improved approach in a cloud model, the aerosol effects on ice microphysics in convective cloud and precipitation development under different thermodynamic conditions is investigated. The model is run for four different thermodynamic soundings and three different aerosol types, maritime (M), continental (C) and polluted (P). Warm rain suppression by increased aerosol (i.e., CCN) is clearly demonstrated when weakly convective warm clouds are generated but the results are mixed when relatively stronger convective warm clouds are generated. For one of the two soundings that generate strong convective cold clouds, the accumulated precipitation amount is larger for C and P than for M, demonstrating the precipitation enhancement by increased CCN. For the maritime cloud, precipitation is initiated by the warm rain processes but ice hydrometeor particles form fast, which leads to early but weak cloud invigoration. Another stronger cloud invigoration occurs later for M but it is still weaker than that for C and P. It is the delayed accumulation of more water drops and ice particles for a burst of riming process and the latent heat release during the depositional growth of rimed ice particles that invigorate the cloud strongly for C and P. For the other sounding where freezing level is low, ice particles form fast for all three aerosol types and therefore warm rain suppression is not clearly shown. However, there still is more precipitation for C and P than for M until the accumulated precipitation amount becomes larger for M than for C near to the end of the model run. The results demonstrate that the precipitation response to aerosols indeed depends on the environmental conditions.