Evaluating the Diurnal Cycle of Upper-Tropospheric Ice Clouds in Climate Models Using SMILES Observations

Jiang, Jonathan H.; Su, Hui; Zhai, Chengxing; Shen, Tsae-Pyng Janice; Wu, Tongwen; Zhang, Jie; Cole, Jason N. S.; Salzen, Knut von; Donner, Leo J.; Seman, Charles J.; Genio, Anthony D. Del; Nazarenko, Larissa; Dufresne, Jean‐Louis; Morcrette, C. J.; Koshiro, Tsuyoshi; Kawai, Hideaki; Gettelman, Andrew; Millán, Luis; Read, W. G.; Livesey, N. J.; Kasai, Y.; Shiotani, Masato

doi:10.1175/jas-d-14-0124.1

Cited by 34 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 111 publications

(133 reference statements)

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“…This study shows that increasing horizontal resolution of BCC_CSM model can only improve the precipitation simulation over complex terrain land in western China but not over other regions, suggesting that deficiencies in model physics cannot be corrected just by increasing the horizontal resolution [ Jiang et al , ]. Both BCC_CSM1.1 m and BCC_CSM1.1 models adopt the deep convective scheme with closure assumption in which stabilization of the atmosphere by convection is in quasi‐equilibrium with destabilization by large‐scale forcing in the troposphere [ Wu , ], implying that the precipitation intensity may be largely determined by large‐scale environment which cannot be changed by just increasing horizontal resolution.…”

Section: Concluding Remarks and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Earlier studies have shown that the horizontal resolution of climate models plays an important role in simulating surface climates [ Giorgi and Mearns , ; Christensen and Kuhry , ; Gao et al , , ], which are strongly affected by fine‐scale forcing (e.g., topography and land use distribution). Recent study of Jiang et al [] found that increasing model horizontal resolution can only improve the simulation of precipitation magnitude over land but not over the ocean and cannot significantly improve the timing of the precipitation. The sensitivity of climate models' performance to resolution is not only due to the description of topographical detail but also to the direct sensitivity of the model physics and dynamics to resolution [ Giorgi and Marinucci , ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluation of the summer precipitation over China simulated by BCC_CSM model with different horizontal resolutions during the recent half century

et al. 2015

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The performance of Beijing Climate Center climate system model with different horizontal resolutions (BCC_CSM1.1 with coarse resolution and BCC_CSM1.1 m with fine resolution) in simulating the summer precipitation over China during the recent half century is evaluated, and the possible underlying physical mechanisms related to the model biases are also further analyzed and discussed. Results show that increasing horizontal resolution does improve the summer precipitation simulation over most part of China especially in western China due to the more realistic description of the topography. However, the summer precipitation amount (PA) over eastern China characterized by monsoonal climates is much more underestimated in the finer resolution model. It is also noted that the improvement (deterioration) of the summer PA over western (eastern) China in BCC_CSM1.1 m model is mainly due to the better (worse) simulation of the moderate and heavy precipitation relative to BCC_CSM1.1 model. In addition, increasing model horizontal resolution can significantly improve the convective precipitation simulation especially over western China but shows very limited improvement in the large-scale precipitation simulation. The much more underestimated summer PA over eastern China in BCC_CSM1.1 m model relative to BCC_CSM1.1 model is due to the significantly reduced positive biases of the convective PA but few changes in the negative biases of the large-scale PA. Further mechanism analysis suggests that both the underestimated land-sea thermal contrast and the overestimated Western Pacific subtropical high result in much less northeastward water vapor transport and summer PA over eastern China in BCC_CSM1.1 m model than in BCC_CSM1.1 model.

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Section: Concluding Remarks and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the summer precipitation over China simulated by BCC_CSM model with different horizontal resolutions during the recent half century

et al. 2015

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“…[] showed that in the annual mean, low clouds occur more often during daytime, while the occurrence of both middle and high clouds is relatively invariant, whereas in the warm season high clouds occur more often between late afternoon and the following morning [ Zhang and Klein , ]. Given the difficulty that GCMs have in capturing the correct timing of precipitation (and the transition from shallow convection to deep convection), it is not surprising that GCMs generally struggle to capture the diurnal cycle of both high clouds and low clouds [ Tian et al ., ; Dai and Trenberth , ; Jiang et al ., ]. Lin et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The diurnal cycle of clouds and precipitation at the ARM SGP site: Cloud radar observations and simulations from the multiscale modeling framework

Wei

Marchand

2017

JGR Atmospheres

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Millimeter Wavelength Cloud Radar (MMCR) data from December 1996 to December 2010, collected at the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program Southern Great Plains (SGP) site, are used to examine the diurnal cycle of hydrometeor occurrence. These data are categorized into clouds (−40 dBZe ≤ reflectivity < −10 dBZe), drizzle and light precipitation (−10 dBZe ≤ reflectivity < 10 dBZe), and heavy precipitation (reflectivity ≥ 10 dBZe). The same criteria are implemented for the observation‐equivalent reflectivity calculated by feeding outputs from a Multiscale Modeling Framework (MMF) climate model into a radar simulator. The MMF model consists of the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model with conventional cloud parameterizations replaced by a cloud‐resolving model. We find that a radar simulator combined with the simple reflectivity categories can be an effective approach for evaluating diurnal variations in model hydrometeor occurrence. It is shown that the MMF only marginally captures observed increases in the occurrence of boundary layer clouds after sunrise in spring and autumn and does not capture diurnal changes in boundary layer clouds during the summer. Above the boundary layer, the MMF captures reasonably well diurnal variations in the vertical structure of clouds and light and heavy precipitation in the summer but not in the spring.

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“…The late afternoon peak time for the upper tropospheric IWP from SMILES observations has been shown in Millan et al [44]. The diurnal cycle of IWP retrieved from SMILES has also been used by Jiang et al [45] to evaluate the climate model simulations. The GA-3 model shows nearly the same peak time for IWP and UTH which is around 19 LT.…”

Section: Diurnal Cycle In Models and Observationsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Evaluating the Diurnal Cycle of Upper Tropospheric Humidity in Two Different Climate Models Using Satellite Observations

Kottayil

John

Buehler³

et al. 2016

Remote Sensing

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Abstract:The diurnal cycle of upper tropospheric humidity (UTH) is known to be influenced by such processes as convection and the formation of clouds which are parameterized in current global climate models. In this study, we evaluate the performance of two climate models, the Community Atmospheric Model version 5 (CAM-5) and the Global Atmosphere 3.0 (GA-3) model in simulating the diurnal cycle of UTH (represented by a combination of sinusoids of 12 and 24 h periods) by comparing with microwave and infrared (IR) measurements (where available). These comparisons were made over two convective land regions in South America and Africa, and over oceanic regions in the Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific for the month of January 2007. We analyzed how the diurnal cycles from IR and microwave instruments differ, and the reason for the differences. Our study suggests that the differences in the diurnal cycles of IR and microwave UTH result from sampling differences due to the presence of clouds. As noted by earlier studies, the models exhibit considerable discrepancies in diurnal amplitude and phase relative to observations, and these discrepancies have different magnitudes over land and ocean.

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Evaluating the Diurnal Cycle of Upper-Tropospheric Ice Clouds in Climate Models Using SMILES Observations

Cited by 34 publications

References 111 publications

Evaluation of the summer precipitation over China simulated by BCC_CSM model with different horizontal resolutions during the recent half century

Evaluation of the summer precipitation over China simulated by BCC_CSM model with different horizontal resolutions during the recent half century

The diurnal cycle of clouds and precipitation at the ARM SGP site: Cloud radar observations and simulations from the multiscale modeling framework

Evaluating the Diurnal Cycle of Upper Tropospheric Humidity in Two Different Climate Models Using Satellite Observations

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