Abstract
The possibility of studying the cloudy planetary boundary layer through one-dimensional modeling is investigated. The various possible parameterizations of mean liquid water content and correlations, in term of the known statistical properties of the conservative variables θ1, and qw are examined in comparison with the results of a three-dimensional numerical model. The “Gaussian” cloud model is removed and a simple, skew exponential distribution is found to be most efficient for parameterizing the turbulent kinetic energy buoyancy production by latent beat release, in the case of the trade-wind cumulus layer. This distribution fits well the histograms of conservative thermodynamic variables and vertical velocity, computed from the three-dimensional data.
