3A.4 Representation of Boundary-Layer Moisture Transport in Cloud-Resolving Models

Monday, 9 July 2012: 4:15 PM
Essex Center/South (Westin Copley Place)
Chin-Hoh Moeng, NCAR, Boulder, CO; and A. Arakawa

With the capability of using giga-grid points in today's computers, the LES technique can be expanded to simulate deep cumulus clouds. Such giga-LES simulations resolve a wide range of scales from turbulent motions of few hundred meters up to the mesoscale cloud organization of hundreds of kilometers. This type of LESs can thus serve as useful benchmark to study scale interactions between large- and small-scale motions, and thus to develop subgrid-scale (SGS) parameterizations for cloud-resolving models (CRMs).

In this talk, we will show a giga-LES of a tropical deep convection system that covers a domain of 204.8 km x 204.8 km x 27 km. We use this LES as benchmark to investigate the highly heterogeneous PBL under deep cloud systems. Partitioning the giga-LES flow field into the CRM resolvable and unresolvable components allows for examinations of the relationship between the two components. We will show how this approach is used to develop and test SGS moisture-flux parameterizations for their inclusion in CRMs.

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