Visualization and Model Intercomparison of the Vector Vorticity Cloud Model

The purpose of this project is to visualize and animate the data created by the Vector Vorticity Cloud Model (VVCM) used to simulate the winter 2006 sixteen day Tropical Warm Pool – International Cloud Experiment (TWP-ICE) data collected by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) and Australian Bureau of Meteorology in Darwin, Austrailia. The VVCM is a non-hydrostaic, anelastic cloud resolving model based on the vector vorticity equation which allows the model to directly derive velocities from vorticity and simplify the problem of boundary conditions at the surface of complex terrains. The TWP-ICE data analysis was handled by Fortran 90 programs, and visualization of meteorological profiles, scalars, and three dimensional variables was output by IDL. The three dimensional visualization of cloud data represented cloud water mass mixing ratio from .4 to 1.4 g/kg and accurately described the relative sizes, advective properties, and growth of convective clouds over the experiment's domain. To reaffirm our three dimensional output, X-Y graphs of cloud water mass mixing ratios, vertical velocities, and cloud top temperatures represented moist thermal plumes and cloud tops. From these graphs and analyses, we found that the VVCM is behaving correctly as a cloud resolving model in the case of the TWP-ICE experiment. The information and analysis created by the VVCM should be used as intercomparison data with other cloud resolving models, so we may better the VVCM and all other cloud resolving models. Future work should continue to enhance the VVCM's structure and output by testing the ARM 1997 land experiment over Oklahoma, USA.