Cloud-Resolving Model Simulations over the ARM SGP

Abstract

Abstract This study aims to combine the cloud-resolving model (CRM) simulations with the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) observations to provide long-term comprehensive and physically consistent data that facilitate quantifying the effects of subgrid cloud–radiation interactions and ultimately to develop physically based parameterization of these interactions in general circulation models. The CRM is applied here to simulate the midlatitude cloud systems observed at the ARM southern Great Plains (SGP) site during the 1997 intensive observation period. As in the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE), the CRM-simulated ensemble mean quantities such as cloud liquid water, cloud fraction, precipitation, and radiative fluxes are generally in line with the surface measurements, satellite, and radar retrievals. The CRM differences from the ARM estimates, when averaged over the entire period, are less than 5 W m−2 in both longwave and shortwave radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere and surface. Because of the different large-scale forcing and surface heat fluxes in ARM and TOGA COARE, the CRM produces different cloud distributions over the midlatitude continent and tropical ocean. However, diagnostic analyses show that the subgrid cloud variability has similar impact on the domain-averaged radiative fluxes and heating rates in ARM as in TOGA COARE.