Modeling of Subgrid-Scale Mixing in Large-Eddy Simulation of Shallow Convection

Abstract

Abstract This paper discusses an extension of the approach proposed previously to represent the delay of cloud water evaporation and buoyancy reversal due to the cloud–environment mixing in bulk microphysics large-eddy simulation of clouds. In the original approach, an additional equation for the mean spatial scale of cloudy filaments was introduced to represent the progress toward microscale homogenization of a volume undergoing turbulent cloud–environment mixing, with the evaporation of cloud water allowed only when the filament scale approached the Kolmogorov microscale. Here, it is shown through a posteriori analysis of model simulations that one should also predict the volume fraction of the cloudy air that was diagnosed in the original approach. The resulting model of turbulent mixing and homogenization, referred to as the λ–β model, is applied in a series of shallow convection simulations using various spatial resolutions and compared to the traditional bulk model. This work represents an intermediate step in the development of a modeling framework to simulate characteristics of microphysical transformations during entrainment and subgrid-scale turbulent mixing.