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Estimation of convective entrainment properties from a cloud-resolving model simulation during TWP-ICE

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Abstract

The fractional entrainment rate in convective clouds is an important parameter in current convective parameterization schemes of climate models. In this paper, it is estimated using a 1-km-resolution cloud-resolving model (CRM) simulation of convective clouds from TWP-ICE (the Tropical Warm Pool-International Cloud Experiment). The clouds are divided into different types, characterized by cloud-top heights. The entrainment rates and moist static energy that is entrained or detrained are determined by analyzing the budget of moist static energy for each cloud type. Results show that the entrained air is a mixture of approximately equal amount of cloud air and environmental air, and the detrained air is a mixture of ~80 % of cloud air and 20 % of the air with saturation moist static energy at the environmental temperature. After taking into account the difference in moist static energy between the entrained air and the mean environment, the estimated fractional entrainment rate is much larger than those used in current convective parameterization schemes. High-resolution (100 m) large-eddy simulation of TWP-ICE convection was also analyzed to support the CRM results. It is shown that the characteristics of entrainment rates estimated using both the high-resolution data and CRM-resolution coarse-grained data are similar. For each cloud category, the entrainment rate is high near cloud base and top, but low in the middle of clouds. The entrainment rates are best fitted to the inverse of in-cloud vertical velocity by a second order polynomial.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Program (BER), under Award Number DE-SC0008880, China Meteorological Administration Special Public Welfare Research Fund GYHY201406007, the PNNL Contract DOE/PNNL 190110, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grant NA11OAR4321098. The Giga-LES data was provided by the CMMAP project, courtesy of Steve Krueger, Don Dazlich and John Helly. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that greatly improved the presentation of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Guang J. Zhang & Toni Mitovski

  2. Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

    Xiaoqing Wu

  3. The Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research (GESTAR), Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Xiping Zeng

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  1. Guang J. Zhang
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Correspondence to Guang J. Zhang.

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Zhang, G.J., Wu, X., Zeng, X. et al. Estimation of convective entrainment properties from a cloud-resolving model simulation during TWP-ICE. Clim Dyn 47, 2177–2192 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2957-7

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