Abstract The behavior of two eddy-diffusivity mass-flux (EDMF) planetary boundary layer schemes used in Version 15 and 16 of NOAA’s Global Forecast System (GFS) is examined in terms of local and nonlocal mixing processes in a one-dimensional (1-D) model configuration. Diagnosis using process perturbation sensitivity experiments indicates that the nonlocal mixing represented by the mass-flux term is much more dominant in one scheme than the other. Quantitative aspects of the local eddy diffusivity are different between the two schemes, pointing to uncertainty in the physical partition of local and nonlocal mixing in the EDMF formulation. One of the two schemes is also shown to produce unphysical thermal and tracer tendencies due to the scheme’s specific numerical treatment of moist nonlocal mixing. To resolve this problem, a physically and numerically consistent approach is proposed to calculate these tendencies.
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