Both the aerosol direct and indirect effects are included in Weather Research and Forecasting Model with Chemistry (WRF/Chem), providing an ideal testbed to explore the meteorological response to different aerosol scenarios at convective-permitting resolution. We apply WRF/Chem to investigate its meteorological response to external plumes injected on different elevations at the outermost upstream boundaries during a convective event in the eastern US with three nesting domains. By injecting plumes at different heights on the boundaries we isolate which of these pathways dominate at various heights, and investigate the overall altitude sensitivity of the RCM response. When injected within a specific zone of heights, the aerosols from the prescribed plumes have the capacity to influence the simulated convective system by altering cloud droplet numbers, cloud optical depth, precipitation efficiency of clouds, as well as accumulated precipitation through aerosol indirect effect. In turn, changes in the simulated convective system affect the aerosol concentration through in-cloud and below-cloud wet removal processes. In contrast, when the pathway of the plume is above the convective system, the aerosol radiative effect dominates, and the convective system is relatively insensitive to the prescribed plume.
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