As the formative agents of cloud droplets, aerosols play an undeniably important role in the development of clouds and precipitation. Few meteorological models have been developed or adapted to simulate aerosols and their contribution to cloud and precipitation forming processes. The Weather Research and Forecasting Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model has been developed to couple atmospheric chemistry with meteorology within a mesoscale modeling framework. Provided that the model physics are robust, this framework will allow the feedbacks between aerosol chemistry, cloud physics, and dynamics to be investigated.

This study focuses on the effect of aerosols on meteorology, specifically, the interaction of aerosol chemical species with the Purdue Lin microphysics scheme implemented within the framework of the WRF-Chem. This approach utilizes an 8-bin representation of aerosols using the MOSAIC sectional parameterization with the Purdue Lin bulk microphysics, which includes a limited double-moment scheme and the Liu et al. autoconversion scheme. The aim of this study is to examine the sensitivity of the WRF-Chem to continental and maritime aerosol regimes in simulation of deep convection in two dimensions. To qualitatively assess the performance of the model, results of simulations will be compared to results of previous works. Using simplified maritime and continental aerosol vertical profiles, a systematic study is undertaken on the effect of aerosols on parameters such as total precipitation, precipitation efficiency, and distribution of latent heating within idealized maritime and continental thermodynamic environments. Dependence of the abovementioned parameters on maritime and continental aerosol regimes due to variations in relative humidity, depth of the warm layer, shear, and buoyancy will also be examined.