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Intercomparison of model simulations of mixed-phase clouds observed during the ARM Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment. I: single-layer cloud

  1. Stephen A. Klein1,*,
  2. Renata B. McCoy1,
  3. Hugh Morrison2,
  4. Andrew S. Ackerman3,†,
  5. Alexander Avramov4,
  6. Gijs de Boer5,
  7. Mingxuan Chen6,
  8. Jason N. S. Cole7,
  9. Anthony D. Del Genio3,†,
  10. Michael Falk8,
  11. Michael J. Foster9,
  12. Ann Fridlind3,†,
  13. Jean-Christophe Golaz10,
  14. Tempei Hashino5,
  15. Jerry Y. Harrington4,
  16. Corinna Hoose11,
  17. Marat F. Khairoutdinov12,
  18. Vincent E. Larson8,
  19. Xiaohong Liu13,
  20. Yali Luo14,
  21. Greg M. McFarquhar15,
  22. Surabi Menon16,
  23. Roel A. J. Neggers17,
  24. Sungsu Park18,
  25. Michael R. Poellot19,
  26. Jerome M. Schmidt20,†,
  27. Igor Sednev16,
  28. Ben J. Shipway21,‡,
  29. Matthew D. Shupe22,
  30. Douglas A. Spangenberg23,
  31. Yogesh C. Sud24,†,
  32. David D. Turner5,
  33. Dana E. Veron25,
  34. Knut von Salzen26,
  35. Gregory K. Walker24,
  36. Zhien Wang27,
  37. Audrey B. Wolf3,
  38. Shaocheng Xie1,
  39. Kuan-Man Xu28,†,
  40. Fanglin Yang29,
  41. Gong Zhang15

Article first published online: 5 MAY 2009

DOI: 10.1002/qj.416

Issue

Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

Volume 135, Issue 641, pages 979–1002, April 2009 Part B

Additional Information

How to Cite

Klein, S. A., McCoy, R. B., Morrison, H., Ackerman, A. S., Avramov, A., Boer, G. d., Chen, M., Cole, J. N. S., Del Genio, A. D., Falk, M., Foster, M. J., Fridlind, A., Golaz, J.-C., Hashino, T., Harrington, J. Y., Hoose, C., Khairoutdinov, M. F., Larson, V. E., Liu, X., Luo, Y., McFarquhar, G. M., Menon, S., Neggers, R. A. J., Park, S., Poellot, M. R., Schmidt, J. M., Sednev, I., Shipway, B. J., Shupe, M. D., Spangenberg, D. A., Sud, Y. C., Turner, D. D., Veron, D. E., Salzen, K. v., Walker, G. K., Wang, Z., Wolf, A. B., Xie, S., Xu, K.-M., Yang, F. and Zhang, G. (2009), Intercomparison of model simulations of mixed-phase clouds observed during the ARM Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment. I: single-layer cloud. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc., 135: 979–1002. doi: 10.1002/qj.416

Author Information

  1. 1

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, USA

  2. 2

    National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

  3. 3

    NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA

  4. 4

    The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

  5. 5

    University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, WI, USA

  6. 6

    Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

  7. 7

    University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

  8. 8

    University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

  9. 9

    Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

  10. 10

    NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey, USA

  11. 11

    ETH Zurich, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Zurich, Switzerland

  12. 12

    State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY, USA

  13. 13

    Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, USA

  14. 14

    State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China

  15. 15

    University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA

  16. 16

    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA

  17. 17

    KNMI, Utrecht, Netherlands

  18. 18

    University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

  19. 19

    University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, USA

  20. 20

    Navy Research Laboratory, Monterey, California, USA

  21. 21

    Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom

  22. 22

    Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado/NOAA, Boulder, CO, USA

  23. 23

    Science Systems and Applications, Inc., Hampton, Virginia, USA

  24. 24

    NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

  25. 25

    University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

  26. 26

    Canadian Center for Climate, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

  27. 27

    University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA

  28. 28

    NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA

  29. 29

    National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Camp Springs, Maryland, USA

  1. †

    The contributions of Andrew S. Ackerman, Anthony D. Del Genio, Ann Fridlind, Jerome M. Schmidt, Yogesh C. Sud, and Kuan-Man Xu to this article were prepared as part of their official duties as United States Federal Government employees.

  2. ‡

    The contribution of Ben J. Shipway was written in the course of his employment at the Met Office, UK and is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

*PCMDI, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, 94551, USA.

  1. †

    The contributions of Andrew S. Ackerman, Anthony D. Del Genio, Ann Fridlind, Jerome M. Schmidt, Yogesh C. Sud, and Kuan-Man Xu to this article were prepared as part of their official duties as United States Federal Government employees.

  2. ‡

    The contribution of Ben J. Shipway was written in the course of his employment at the Met Office, UK and is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 8 JUN 2009
  2. Article first published online: 5 MAY 2009
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 2 MAR 2009
  4. Manuscript Revised: 23 FEB 2009
  5. Manuscript Received: 5 MAR 2008

Funded by

  • Office of Science of the United States (US)

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Keywords:

  • mixed-phase cloud;
  • Arctic clouds;
  • single-column models;
  • cloud-resolving models

Abstract

Results are presented from an intercomparison of single-column and cloud-resolving model simulations of a cold-air outbreak mixed-phase stratocumulus cloud observed during the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) programme's Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment. The observed cloud occurred in a well-mixed boundary layer with a cloud-top temperature of − 15 °C. The average liquid water path of around 160 g m−2 was about two-thirds of the adiabatic value and far greater than the average mass of ice which when integrated from the surface to cloud top was around 15 g m−2.

Simulations of 17 single-column models (SCMs) and 9 cloud-resolving models (CRMs) are compared. While the simulated ice water path is generally consistent with observed values, the median SCM and CRM liquid water path is a factor-of-three smaller than observed. Results from a sensitivity study in which models removed ice microphysics suggest that in many models the interaction between liquid and ice-phase microphysics is responsible for the large model underestimate of liquid water path.

Despite this underestimate, the simulated liquid and ice water paths of several models are consistent with observed values. Furthermore, models with more sophisticated microphysics simulate liquid and ice water paths that are in better agreement with the observed values, although considerable scatter exists. Although no single factor guarantees a good simulation, these results emphasize the need for improvement in the model representation of mixed-phase microphysics. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society

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