Abstract
A closure for the fluxes of mass, heat, and moisture at cloud base in the cumulus-capped boundary layer is developed. The cloud-base mass flux is obtained from a simplifed turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) budget for the sub-cloud layer, in which cumulus convection is assumed to be associated with a transport of TKE from the sub-cloud layer to the cloud layer. The heat and moisture fluxes are obtained from a jump model based on the virtual-potential-temperature equation. A key part of this parametrization is the parametrization of the virtual-temperature flux at the top of the transition zone between the sub-cloud and cloud layers. It is argued that pressure fluctuations must be responsible for the transport of TKE from the cloud layer to the sub-cloud layer.
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