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Lu, Chunsong

Publications and source records attributed to Lu, Chunsong.

28 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Factors Affecting Entrainment Rate in Deep Convective Clouds and Parameterizations

The parameterization of cloud entrainment rates has been problematic for many years, hindering the accurate representation of convective processes in large-scale models. Here, we extend our previous work on individual shallow convection to ensemble deep convection. Entrainment rates are estimated based on three-dimensional convective clouds from August 19-20 of 1999, during the Kwajalein Experiment, simulated using a high-resolution cloud-resolving model. They are found to be negatively correlated with both vertical velocity and buoyancy, and positively correlated with the vertical divergence of the vertical velocity and with the reciprocal of cloud radii. The physical mechanisms underlying these relationships are interpreted. It is found that the parameterizations with multiple properties perform better than those with a single property. Entrainment rates and relative humidity of entrained air are positively correlated at temperature higher than 0°C, but negatively correlated at temperature lower than 0°C. Relative humidity is also included in the parameterization of entrainment rates, which differs from our previous work on shallow cumulus clouds and other studies. Finally, two forms of parameterization for entrainment rate are recommended. The first treats the entrainment rate as a function of the vertical velocity and buoyancy for temperature higher than 0°C, but as a function of relative humidity and buoyancy for temperature lower than 0°C. The second involves an equation that relates entrainment rates to vertical velocity and buoyancy regardless of temperature.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Comprehensive quantification of height dependence of entrainment mixing between stratiform cloud top and environment

Different entrainment-mixing processes of turbulence are crucial to processes related to clouds; however, only a few qualitative studies have been concentrated on the vertical distributions of entrainment-mixing mechanisms with low vertical resolutions. To quantitatively study vertical profiles of entrainment-mixing mechanisms with a high resolution, the stratiform clouds observed in the Physics of Stratocumulus Top (POST) project are examined. The unique sawtooth flight pattern allows for an examination of the vertical distributions of entrainment-mixing mechanisms with a 5 m vertical resolution. Relative standard deviation of volume mean radius divided by relative standard deviation of liquid water content is introduced to be a new estimation of microphysical homogeneous mixing degree, to overcome difficulties of determining the adiabatic microphysical properties required in existing measures. The vertical profile of this new measure indicates that entrainment-mixing mechanisms become more homogeneous with decreasing altitudes and are consistent with the dynamical measures of Damköhler number and transition scale number. Further analysis shows that the vertical variation of entrainment-mixing mechanisms with decreasing altitudes is due to the increases of turbulent dissipation rate in cloud and relative humidity in droplet-free air and the decrease of size of droplet-free air. The results offer insights into the theoretical understanding and parameterizations of vertical variation of entrainment-mixing mechanisms.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Consideration of Initial Cloud Droplet Size Distribution Shapes in Quantifying Different Entrainment-Mixing Mechanisms

Entrainment-mixing process significantly affects cloud micro/macrophysics and the evaluation of aerosol indirect effects. However, it remains an open question as to how to quantify entrainment-mixing mechanism for broad cloud droplet size distributions (CDSDs). Here, CDSDs with different spectral widths are used to initialize the Explicit Mixing Parcel Model to address this problem, and microphysical properties are compared for different CDSD widths. For relatively broad CDSDs, as the number concentration and liquid water content decrease, the volume-mean radius and mean radius increase, which is opposite to the scenario for relatively narrow CDSDs and the homogeneous/inhomogeneous conceptual model. For the relatively broad CDSDs, such relationships could be mistaken as inhomogeneous mixing with subsequent ascent in analysis of the conventional microphysical mixing diagram. This then causes traditional homogenous mixing degrees to be unrealistically negative and not applicable for relatively broad CDSDs. New measures are introduced to explicitly account for the effect of CDSD spectral shapes on quantifying entrainment-mixing mechanism. The new measures yield reasonable ranges of values that conform to the dynamical measures such as the Damköhler and transitional scale numbers, and their temporal variation can be explained physically. This study extends the measures of homogeneous mixing degrees from narrow to broad CDSDs, and sheds new light on the consideration of CDSD shapes in parameterizations of entrainment-mixing mechanism.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Vertical variation of turbulent entrainment mixing processes in marine stratocumulus clouds using high-resolution digital holography

Marine stratocumulus clouds contribute signi?cantly to the Earth’s radiation budget due to their extensive coverage and high albedo. Yet, subgrid variability in cloud properties such as aerosol concentration, droplet number and precipitation rates lead to considerable errors in global climate models. While these clouds usually have small vertical ex-tent, turbulent entrainment-mixing and precipitation can generate signi?cant variations in droplet number, size and relative dispersion with altitude. In this paper, we analyze turbulent entrainment-mixing processes and the variability in cloud microphysical properties as a function of height within a warm marine stratocumulus cloud layer over the Eastern North Atlantic. We use high resolution airborne holographic measurements and compare them with local turbulence measurements. We ?nd that entrainment-mixing is primarily inhomogeneous near cloud top leading to larger droplet sizes and homogeneous near cloud base leading to smaller droplet sizes. Further analysis of Damk¨ohler number measurements are able to explain the mixing mechanisms at di?erent cloud heights, reinforcing the importance of turbulent mixing and microphysical time scales in deter-mining cloud microphysics.

Desai, Neel↗
DOE OSTI2020

Parameterizations of Entrainment-Mixing Mechanisms and their Effects on Cloud Droplet Spectral Width Based on Numerical Simulations

Entrainment-mixing mechanisms significantly affect cloud droplet number concentration, radius, and spectral shape. Quantitative examination of entrainment-mixing effects on cloud droplet spectral width is lacking. Here, we examine the effects of entrainment-mixing processes on cloud microphysics by 12,218 different setups, each simulated 10 times using the Explicit Mixing Parcel Model (EMPM) driven by the observational data from the Third Tibetan Plateau Atmospheric Scientific Experiment (TIPEX-III) campaign. Parameterizations of entrainment-mixing mechanisms are developed by relating homogeneous mixing degree to transition scale number that depends on the dissipation rate and droplet evaporation time scale. The correlation between relative dispersion of cloud droplet size distribution and homogeneous mixing degree changes from negative to positive with the decreasing homogeneous mixing degree. The different relationships are closely related to the competition between complete and partial droplet evaporation and the number concentration of small droplets, which are quantitatively described by two newly introduced dimensionless numbers. The competition is significantly affected by relative humidity and mixing fraction of entrained air as well as turbulence dissipation rate, but not much by cloud droplet number concentration. Especially, when relative humidity and dissipation rate are high, there is only a negative correlation. This study sheds new light on generalizing the homogeneous/inhomogeneous concept by considering relative dispersion, and also provides parameterizations of entrainment-mixing processes and relative dispersion for atmospheric models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Effects of Cloud Liquid-Phase Microphysical Processes in Mixed-Phase Cumuli Over the Tibetan Plateau

Numerical simulations often overpredict precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau (TP). To examine the factors causing precipitation overprediction, different parameterizations of liquid-phase microphysical processes (accretion, autoconversion, and entrainment-mixing) are implemented into the Morrison microphysics scheme to simulate a TP precipitation event in summer with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The general spatial distribution and temporal trend of precipitation are captured by all simulations, but the precipitation rate is overpredicted. The results from sensitivity experiments suggest that compared to other examined liquid-phase processes, the accretion process is more important in precipitation simulation over the TP region. Further investigation with the Heidke skill scores reveals that accretion parameterization that takes into account the raindrop size produces the most accurate results in terms of the total surface precipitation. This parameterization suppresses spurious accretion and does not produce liquid-phase precipitation until cloud droplets are big enough. Here, it is also confirmed that increasing the model resolution can reduce precipitation overprediction. Results from the case study are confirmed by the use of a one-month simulation.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Reconciling Contrasting Relationships Between Relative Dispersion and Volume-Mean Radius of Cloud Droplet Size Distributions

Cloud droplet spectral relative dispersion is critical to parameterizations of cloud radiative properties, warm-rain initiation, and aerosol-cloud interactions in models; however, there is no consistent relationship between relative dispersion and volume-mean radius in literature, which hinders improving relative dispersion parameterization and calls for physical explanation. Here we show, by analyzing aircraft observations of cumulus clouds during Routine AAF [Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Aerial Facility] Clouds with Low Optical Water Depths (CLOWD) Optical Radiative Observations, that the correlation between relative dispersion and volume-mean radius changes from positive to negative as volume-mean radius increases. With the new observation, we postulate that the sign of the correlation is determined by whether or not condensation (evaporation) occurs simultaneously with significant new activation (deactivation). The hypothesis is validated by simulations of both an adiabatic cloud parcel model and a parcel model accounting for entrainment-mixing. A new quantity, first bin strength, is introduced to quantify this new observation. Theoretical analysis of truncated gamma and modified gamma size distributions further supports the hypothesis and reconciles the contrasting relationships between relative dispersion and volume-mean radius, including the results in polluted fog observations. The results could shed new light on the so-called “twilight zone” between cloudy and cloud-free air, which in turn affects evaluation of aerosol-cloud interactions and retrieval of aerosol optical depth.

Lu, Chunsong↗
DOE OSTI2020

Contrasting Scale Dependence of Entrainment-Mixing Mechanisms in Stratocumulus Clouds

The apparent turbulent entrainment-mixing mechanism between clouds and surrounding air is scale-dependent; however, such scale dependence has been rarely studied, hindering development of scale-aware entrainment-mixing parameterizations. Here we extend our previous study on cumulus clouds to investigate scale dependence of entrainment-mixing processes in stratocumulus clouds during ACE-ENA and RACORO. In contrast to previous studies, two opposite scale dependencies are found: entrainment-mixing can become more homogeneous or more inhomogeneous with increasing averaging scales, which is quantified by the difference between homogeneous mixing degree at the 100 m and 10 m resolutions. A new heuristic model and two new quantities are introduced. The observations and model show that microphysical properties near and far away from droplet-free air and relative humidity of entrained air determine both the sign and strength of scale dependence, while droplet-free air fraction only affects the strength. The results shed new light on developing scale-aware parameterizations of entrainment-mixing mechanisms.

Gao, Sinan↗