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Links Between Mesoscale Dynamics and Cloud Water in High-Resolution March 2000 RAMS Simulations

Weaver, C.P.(a), Gordon, N.D.(b), Norris, J.R.(b), and Klein, S.A.(d), Rutgers University (a), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (b), NOAA/GFDL (c)
Fourteenth Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Science Team Meeting

The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) is applied as a tool for improving our understanding of sub-GCM-grid-scale cloudiness. Specifically, we use high-resolution simulations of March 2000 IOP days to identify the important mesoscale dynamic and thermodynamic controls on cloud water distributions. The resolution dependence of the simulated results is also investigated as a way to identify potential deficiencies in coarser-resolution models, such as GCMs. The main finding from the high-resolution (3-km horizontal grid spacing) simulations is that there is strong spatial variability in vertical velocity during the case study days chosen, and this dynamical variability is the primary control on cloud spatial structure. The coarser-resolution simulations (12-km and 48-km) have two types of deficiency: they do not produce the correct distribution of the dynamical forcing, and, given a specific amount of forcing, they do not produce the right amount of cloud water.

Note: This is the poster abstract presented at the meeting; an extended version was not provided by the author(s).