The Simulation of a Convective Cloud in a 3D Model with Explicit Microphysics. Part II: Dynamical and Microphysical Aspects of Cloud Merger

Abstract

Abstract The development and merger of pairs of convective clouds in a shear-free environment were simulated in an explicit microphysical cloud model. The occurrence or nonoccurrence of updraft merger and the timing of merger depended critically on the initial spacing of the thermal perturbations imposed in the model's initialization. In the unmerged cases the presence of a neighbor cloud was detrimental to cloud development at all times. In the merged cases this negative interaction was still operating but only until the onset of updraft merger. Based on the visual form of the updraft merger, it was hypothesized that low-level merger was a consequence of mutual advection, that is, that each cloud caught its neighbor in its radial inflow and advected it inward. This low-level advection hypothesis was quantified by considering a potential flow induced by two line sinks whose strengths were set equal to the low-level mass flux into the numerically simulated clouds. The merger times obtained from the advecti...