Examination of turbulent entrainment‐mixing mechanisms using a combined approach

Turbulent entrainment‐mixing mechanisms are investigated by applying a combined approach to the aircraft measurements of three drizzling and two nondrizzling stratocumulus clouds collected over the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Southern Great Plains site during the March 2000 cloud Intensive Observation Period. Microphysical analysis shows that the inhomogeneous entrainment‐mixing process occurs much more frequently than the homogeneous counterpart, and most cases of the inhomogeneous entrainment‐mixing process are close to the extreme scenario, having drastically varying cloud droplet concentration but roughly constant volume‐mean radius. It is also found that the inhomogeneous entrainment‐mixing process can occur both near the cloud top and in the middle level of a cloud, and in both the nondrizzling clouds and nondrizzling legs in the drizzling clouds. A new dimensionless number, the scale number, is introduced as a dynamical measure for different entrainment‐mixing processes, with a larger scale number corresponding to a higher degree of homogeneous entrainment mixing. Further empirical analysis shows that the scale number that separates the homogeneous from the inhomogeneous entrainment‐mixing process is around 50, and most legs have smaller scale numbers. Thermodynamic analysis shows that sampling average of filament structures finer than the instrumental spatial resolution also contributes to the dominance of inhomogeneous entrainment‐mixing mechanism. The combined microphysical‐dynamical‐thermodynamic analysis sheds new light on developing parameterization of entrainment‐mixing processes and their microphysical and radiative effects in large‐scale models.