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Distinct Contributions of Ice Nucleation, Large‐Scale Environment, and Shallow Cumulus Detrainment to Cloud Phase Partitioning With NCAR CAM5
Author(s) -
Wang Yong,
Zhang Damao,
Liu Xiaohong,
Wang Zhien
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1002/2017jd027213
Subject(s) - ice nucleus , atmospheric sciences , environmental science , water vapor , coupled model intercomparison project , climatology , climate model , liquid water content , nucleation , meteorology , climate change , physics , geology , cloud computing , oceanography , computer science , thermodynamics , operating system
Abstract Mixed‐phase clouds containing both liquid droplets and ice particles occur frequently at high latitudes and in the midlatitude storm track regions. Simulations of the cloud phase partitioning between liquid and ice hydrometeors in state‐of‐the‐art global climate models are still associated with large biases. In this study, the phase partitioning in terms of liquid mass phase ratio (MPR liq , defined as the ratio of liquid mass to total condensed water mass) simulated from the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) is evaluated against the observational data from A‐Train satellite remote sensors. Modeled MPR liq is significantly lower than observations on the global scale, especially in the Southern Hemisphere (e.g., Southern Ocean and the Antarctic). Sensitivity tests with CAM5 are conducted to investigate the distinct contributions of heterogeneous ice nucleation, shallow cumulus detrainment, and large‐scale environment (e.g., winds, temperature, and water vapor) to the low MPR liq biases. Our results show that an aerosol‐aware ice nucleation parameterization increases the MPR liq especially at temperatures colder than −20°C and significantly improves the model agreements with observations in the Polar regions in summer. The decrease of threshold temperature over which all detrained cloud water is liquid from 268 to 253 K enhances the MPR liq and improves the MPR liq mostly over the Southern Ocean. By constraining water vapor in CAM5 toward reanalysis, modeled low biases in many geographical regions are largely reduced through a significant decrease of cloud ice mass mixing ratio.