Deep Convective Transport in Convective Systems of Three Different Scales from the DC3 Field Campaign Using Results from WRF-Chem Simulations with Lightning Data Assimilation

Vertical transport of trace gases through convective clouds has effects on global tropospheric ozone production by redistributing the necessary reactive nitrogen catalysts and other precursor species. This study focuses on analysis of the vertical transport in convective systems of three different spatial scales from the 2012 Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) field campaign. These convective systems are airmass thunderstorms that occurred in northern Alabama on May 21, a multicell cluster containing one severe storm that existed in Oklahoma on May 29, and a mesoscale convection system that occurred over Missouri, Arkansas, and Illinois on June 11. Three aircraft (NASA DC-8, NCAR G-V, DLR Falcon) sampled inflow and outflow of the convective storms. The WRF-Chem model is used to simulate these three convective systems at cloud-resolving resolution. In order to improve the WRF-Chem simulation of storm location and structure, we also assimilate gridded total flashes from the Lightning Mapping Array (LMA) and Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN) and enhance water vapor mixing ratios in the model at locations with lightning. The model-simulated vertical distributions of trace gases are compared with aircraft measurements. Model-derived trace gas mixing ratios and vertical velocities are used in computing vertical transport flux and vertical flux divergence from the boundary layer to the upper troposphere in these cases of three different scales. Also, we analyze vertical transport in different composite reflectivity regions to determine the effect of storm intensity on vertical transport. In addition, we use cloud-resolving scale vertical transport fluxes to evaluate the fluxes from cloud parameterized WRF-Chem runs at 15 km horizontal resolution.