Abstract

Substantial evolution of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NVDI)-derived vegetation cover (Fg) exists in the southwestern United States and Mexico. The intraseasonal and wet-/dry-year fluctuations of Fg are linked to observed precipitation in the North American monsoon system (NAMS). The manner in which the spatial and temporal variability of Fg influences the land–atmosphere energy and moisture fluxes, and associated likelihood of moist convection in the NAMS regions, is examined. For this, the regional climate model (RCM) is employed, with three different Fg boundary conditions to examine the influence of intraseasonal and wet-/dry-year vegetation variability. Results show that a strong link exists between evaporative fraction (EF), surface temperature, and relative humidity in the boundary layer (BL), which is consistent with a positive soil moisture feedback. However, contrary to expectations, higher Fg does not consistently enhance EF across the NAMS region. This is because the low soil moisture values simulated by the land surface model (LSM) yield high canopy resistance values throughout the monsoon season. As a result, the experiment with the lowest Fg yields the greatest EF and precipitation in the NAMS region, and also modulates regional atmospheric circulation that steers the track of tropical cyclones. In conclusion, the simulated influence of vegetation on land–atmosphere exchanges depends strongly on the canopy stress index parameterized in the LSM. Therefore, a reliable dataset, at appropriate scales, is needed to calibrate transpiration schemes and to assess simulated and realistic vegetation–atmosphere interactions in the NAMS region.

Abstract

This study uses a model with aerosol–cloud–radiation coupling to examine the impact of Saharan dust and other aerosols on Hurricane Nadine (2012). To study aerosol direct (radiation) and indirect (cloud microphysics) effects from individual, as well as all aerosol species, eight different NU-WRF Model simulations were conducted. In several simulations, aerosols led to storm strengthening, followed by weakening relative to the control simulation. This variability of the aerosol impact may be related to whether aerosols are ingested into clouds within the outer rainbands or the eyewall. Upper-tropospheric aerosol concentrations indicate vertical transport of all aerosol types in the outer bands but only vertical transport of sea salt in the inner core. The results suggest that aerosols, particularly sea salt, may have contributed to a stronger initial intensification but that aerosol ingestion into the outer bands at later times may have weakened the storm in the longer term. In most aerosol experiments, aerosols led to a reduction in cloud and precipitation hydrometeors, the exception being the dust-only case that produced periods of enhanced hydrometeor growth. The Saharan air layer (SAL) also impacted Nadine by causing a region of strong easterlies impinging on the eastern side of the storm. At the leading edge of these easterlies, cool and dry air near the top of the SAL was being ingested into the outer-band convection. This midlevel low-equivalent-potential-temperature air gradually lowered toward the surface and eventually contributed to significant cold-pool activity in the eastern rainband and in the northeast quadrant of the storm. Such enhanced downdraft activity could have led to weakening of the storm, but it is not presently possible to quantify this impact.

Abstract

This paper proposes a methodology known as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Triple-Sensor Three-Step Evaluation Framework (T3EF) for the systematic evaluation of precipitating cloud types and microphysics in a cloud-resolving model (CRM). T3EF utilizes multisensor satellite simulators and novel statistics of multisensor radiance and backscattering signals observed from the TRMM satellite. Specifically, T3EF compares CRM and satellite observations in the form of combined probability distributions of precipitation radar (PR) reflectivity, polarization-corrected microwave brightness temperature (T_b ), and infrared T_b to evaluate the candidate CRM.

T3EF is used to evaluate the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble (GCE) model for cases involving the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX) and the Kwajalein Experiment (KWAJEX). This evaluation reveals that the GCE properly captures the satellite-measured frequencies of different precipitating cloud types in the SCSMEX case but overestimates the frequencies of cumulus congestus in the KWAJEX case. Moreover, the GCE tends to simulate excessively large and abundant frozen condensates in deep precipitating clouds as inferred from the overestimated GCE-simulated radar reflectivities and microwave T_b depressions. Unveiling the detailed errors in the GCE’s performance provides the better direction for model improvements.

Abstract

Episodic events of both Saharan dust outbreaks and African easterly waves (AEWs) are observed to move westward over the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean. The relationship between the warm, dry, and dusty Saharan air layer on the nearby storms has been the subject of considerable debate. In this study, the Weather Research and Forecasting model is used to investigate the radiative effect of dust on the development of AEWs during August and September, the months of maximum tropical cyclone activity, in years 2003–07. The simulations show that dust radiative forcing enhances the convective instability of the environment. As a result, most AEWs intensify in the presence of a dust layer. The Lorenz energy cycle analysis reveals that the dust radiative forcing enhances the condensational heating, which elevates the zonal and eddy available potential energy. In turn, available potential energy is effectively converted to eddy kinetic energy, in which local convective overturning plays the primary role. The magnitude of the intensification effect depends on the initial environmental conditions, including moisture, baroclinity, and the depth of the boundary layer. The authors conclude that dust radiative forcing, albeit small, serves as a catalyst to promote local convection that facilitates AEW development.

Abstract

Series of aerosol transport hindcasts for West Africa were conducted using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model coupled to chemistry within the NASA-Unified WRF (NU-WRF) framework. The transport of biomass-burning aerosols in April and December 2009 was investigated over two types of simulation domains. One-month simulations with 9-km grid spacing for April or December 2009 covered most of North and West Africa and were evaluated by comparison with measurements of the total-column aerosol optical depth, Ångström exponent, and horizontal wind components at various pressure levels. The horizontal wind components at 700 hPa were identified as key factors in determining the transport patterns of biomass-burning aerosols from sub-Saharan West Africa to the Sahel. The vertical accumulation of biomass-burning aerosols close to 700 hPa was demonstrated in 1-day simulations with 1-km horizontal grid spacing. A new simple parameterization for the effects of heat release by biomass burning was designed for this resolution and tested together with the conventional parameterization based on fixed smoke injection heights. The aerosol vertical profiles were somewhat sensitive to the selection of parameterization, except for cases with the assumption of excessive heating by biomass burning. The new parameterization works reasonably well and offers flexibility to relate smoke transport to biomass-burning plume rise that can be correlated with the satellite fire radiative power measurements, which is advantageous relative to the conventional parameterization.

Abstract

The estimation of precipitation across the globe from satellite sensors provides a key resource in the observation and understanding of our climate system. Estimates from all pertinent satellite observations are critical in providing the necessary temporal sampling. However, consistency in these estimates from instruments with different frequencies and resolutions is critical. This paper details the physically based retrieval scheme to estimate precipitation from cross-track (XT) passive microwave (PM) sensors on board the constellation satellites of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. Here the Goddard profiling algorithm (GPROF), a physically based Bayesian scheme developed for conically scanning (CS) sensors, is adapted for use with XT PM sensors. The present XT GPROF scheme utilizes a model-generated database to overcome issues encountered with an observational database as used by the CS scheme. The model database ensures greater consistency across meteorological regimes and surface types by providing a more comprehensive set of precipitation profiles. The database is corrected for bias against the CS database to ensure consistency in the final product. Statistical comparisons over western Europe and the United States show that the XT GPROF estimates are comparable with those from the CS scheme. Indeed, the XT estimates have higher correlations against surface radar data, while maintaining similar root-mean-square errors. Latitudinal profiles of precipitation show the XT estimates are generally comparable with the CS estimates, although in the southern midlatitudes the peak precipitation is shifted equatorward while over the Arctic large differences are seen between the XT and the CS retrievals.

Abstract

Two mixed-phase precipitation events were observed on 21 September and 20 October 2010 over the southern part of Finland during the Light Precipitation Validation Experiment (LPVEx). These events have been simulated using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model coupled with spectral bin microphysics (WRF–SBM). The detailed ice-melting scheme with prognosis of the liquid water fraction during melting enables explicit simulation of microphysical properties in the melting layer. First, the simulations have been compared with C-band 3D radar measurements for the purpose of evaluating the overall profiles of cloud and precipitation. The simulation has some artificial convective patterns and errors in the forecast displacement of the precipitation system. The overall overestimation of reflectivity is consistent with a bias toward the range characterized by large-diameter droplets in the surface drop size distribution. Second, the structure of the melting bands has been evaluated against vertically pointing K-band radar measurements. A peak in reflectivity and a gradual change in Doppler velocity are observed and similarly simulated in the common temperature range from approximately 0° to 3°C. The effectiveness of the time-dependent melting scheme has been justified by intercomparison with a corresponding simulation using an instantaneous melting scheme. A weakness of the new melting scheme is that melting particles having high liquid water fractions on the order of 80%–90% cannot be simulated. This situation may cause underestimation of radar reflectivity in the melting layer because of the assumptions of melting-particle structure used to calculate the scattering properties.

Abstract

The ice crystal enhancement (IE) factor, defined as the ratio of the ice crystal to ice nuclei (IN) number concentrations for any particular cloud condition, is needed to quantify the contribution of changes in IN to global warming. However, the ensemble characteristics of IE are still unclear. In this paper, a representation of the IE factor is incorporated into a three-ice-category microphysical scheme for use in long-term cloud-resolving model (CRM) simulations. Model results are compared with remote sensing observations, which suggest that, absent a physically based consideration of how IE comes about, the IE factor in tropical clouds is about 10³ times larger than that in midlatitudinal ones. This significant difference in IE between the tropics and middle latitudes is consistent with the observation of stronger entrainment and detrainment in the tropics. In addition, the difference also suggests that cloud microphysical parameterizations depend on spatial resolution (or subgrid turbulence parameterizations within CRMs).

Abstract

Two field campaigns, the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) and the Tropical Warm Pool–International Cloud Experiment (TWP-ICE), took place in 2006 near Niamey, Niger, and Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, providing extensive observations of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) near a desert and a tropical coast, respectively. Under the constraint of their observations, three-dimensional cloud-resolving model simulations are carried out and presented in this paper to replicate the basic characteristics of the observed MCSs. All of the modeled MCSs exhibit a distinct structure having deep convective clouds accompanied by stratiform and anvil clouds. In contrast to the approximately 100-km-scale MCSs observed in TWP-ICE, the MCSs in AMMA have been successfully simulated with a scale of about 400 km.

These modeled AMMA and TWP-ICE MCSs offer an opportunity to understand the structure and mechanism of MCSs. Comparing the water budgets between AMMA and TWP-ICE MCSs suggests that TWP-ICE convective clouds have stronger ascent while the mesoscale ascent outside convective clouds in AMMA is stronger. A case comparison, with the aid of sensitivity experiments, also suggests that vertical wind shear and ice crystal (or dust aerosol) concentration can significantly impact stratiform and anvil clouds (e.g., their areas) in MCSs. In addition, the obtained water budgets quantitatively describe the transport of water between convective, stratiform, and anvil regions as well as water sources/sinks from microphysical processes, providing information that can be used to help determine parameters in the convective and cloud parameterizations in general circulation models (GCMs).

Abstract

A Saharan air layer (SAL) event associated with a nondeveloping African easterly wave (AEW) over the main development region of the eastern Atlantic was sampled by the NASA Global Hawk aircraft on 24–25 August 2013 during the NASA Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) campaign and was simulated with the NASA Unified Weather Research and Forecasting (NU-WRF) Model. Airborne, ground-based, and spaceborne measurements were used to evaluate the model performance. The microphysical and radiative effects of dust and other aerosols on the SAL structure and environment were investigated with the factor-separation method. The results indicate that relative to a simulation without dust–radiative and microphysical impacts, Saharan dust and other aerosols heated the SAL air mainly through shortwave heating by the direct aerosol–radiation (AR) effect, resulting in a warmer (up to 0.6 K) and drier (up to 5% RH reduction) SAL and maintaining the strong temperature inversion at the base of the SAL in the presence of predominant longwave cooling. Radiative heating of the dust accentuated a vertical circulation within the dust layer, in which air rose (sank) in the northern (southern) portions of the dust layer. Furthermore, above and to the south of the dust layer, both the microphysical and radiative impacts of dust tended to counter the vertical motions associated with the Hadley circulation, causing a small weakening and southward shift of convection in the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and reduced anvil cloud to the north. Changes in moisture and cloud/precipitation hydrometeors were largely driven by the dust-induced changes in vertical motion. Dust strengthened the African easterly jet by up to ~1 m s⁻¹ at the southern edge of the jet, primarily through the AR effect, and produced modest increases in vertical wind shear within and in the vicinity of the dust layer. These modulations of the SAL and AEW environment clearly contributed to the nondevelopment of this AEW.