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Simulations of Cloud-Radiation Interaction Using Large-Scale Forcing Derived from the CINDY/DYNAMO Northern Sounding ArrayThe recently completed CINDY/DYNAMO field campaign observed two Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) events in the equatorial Indian Ocean from October to December 2011. Prior work has indicated that the moist static energy anomalies in these events grew and were sustained to a significant extent by radiative feedbacks. We present here a study of radiative fluxes and clouds in a set of cloud-resolving simulations of these MJO events. The simulations are driven by the large-scale forcing data set derived from the DYNAMO northern sounding array observations, and carried out in a doubly periodic domain using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Simulated cloud properties and radiative fluxes are compared to those derived from the S-PolKa radar and satellite observations. To accommodate the uncertainty in simulated cloud microphysics, a number of single-moment (1M) and double-moment (2M) microphysical schemes in the WRF model are tested. The 1M schemes tend to underestimate radiative flux anomalies in the active phases of the MJO events, while the 2M schemes perform better, but can overestimate radiative flux anomalies. All the tested microphysics schemes exhibit biases in the shapes of the histograms of radiative fluxes and radar reflectivity. Histograms of radiative fluxes and brightness temperature indicate that radiative biases are not evenly distributed; the most significant bias occurs in rainy areas with OLR less than 150 W/ cu sq in the 2M schemes. Analysis of simulated radar reflectivities indicates that this radiative flux uncertainty is closely related to the simulated stratiform cloud coverage. Single-moment schemes underestimate stratiform cloudiness by a factor of 2, whereas 2M schemes simulate much more stratiform cloud.
Document ID
20160003589
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Wang, Shuguang
(Columbia Univ. New York, NY, United States)
Sobel, Adam H.
(Columbia Univ. New York, NY, United States)
Fridlind, Ann
(NASA Goddard Inst. for Space Studies New York, NY United States)
Feng, Zhe
(Pacific Northwest National Lab. Richland, WA, United States)
Comstock, Jennifer M.
(Pacific Northwest National Lab. Richland, WA, United States)
Minnis, Patrick
(NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA, United States)
Nordeen, Michele L.
(Science Systems and Applications, Inc. Hampton, VA, United States)
Date Acquired
March 22, 2016
Publication Date
September 26, 2015
Publication Information
Publication: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
Publisher: AGU / Wiley
Volume: 7
Issue: 3
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN30555
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NSF AGS-1062206
WBS: WBS 199008.02.04.10.Q765.13
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-SC0000991
CONTRACT_GRANT: DE-AC05-76RL01830
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNL11AA00B
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
Indian Ocean
cloud-radiation interaction
Madden-Julian Oscillation

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