Impacts of the triggering function of cumulus parameterization on warm‐season diurnal rainfall cycles at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Southern Great Plains site

Abstract In this study, we investigated the impacts of the triggering function of the deep convection scheme on diurnal rainfall variation in the middle latitudes by using the single‐column version of the Community Atmospheric Model (SCAM). Using the climate statistics of a long‐term ensemble analysis of SCAM simulations, we quantified and validated the diurnal rainfall climatological regimes at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. The results showed that the averaged diurnal rainfall cycle simulated using the default Zhang‐Mcfarlane (ZM) scheme of the SCAM peaks near noon, which is far earlier than the observed nighttime peak phase. This bias was due to the ZM scheme, which produced spurious daytime rainfall, even during days in which only light rainfall was observed. By contrast, using a weather‐focused scheme, the Simplified Arakawa‐Schubert (SAS) scheme, we successfully simulated the nocturnal peak of the diurnal cycle. Experiments conducted on the ZM and SAS schemes featuring different triggering functions revealed that the relaxation of launching parcels above the planetary boundary layer (PBL) and the inclusion of convective inhibition (CIN) were crucial designs for the model to capture the nocturnal rainfall events of the SGP. The inclusion of CIN reduces spurious weak convective events, and the allowance of launching parcels being above the PBL better captures convective cloud base. The results of this study highlight the modulatory effect of low‐level inhomogeneity on the diurnal variation of convection over midlatitudes and the importance of the triggering function of the deep convection scheme in capturing those variations.