Abstracts for the 6th International GAME Conf.
3-5 December 2004
Kyoto Japan
Cloud microphysical structure as investigated with a non-hydrostatic cloud resolving model
T. Iguchi (1), T. Nakajima (1), A. Khain (3), K. Saito (4), T. Takemura (5), Y. Ishizaka (6), T. Y. Nakajima (7)
(1) Center for Climate System Research, the University of Tokyo
(3) The Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(4) Numerical Prediction Division, Japan Meteorological Agency
(5) Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University
(6) Hydrospheric Atomospheric Research Center (HyARC), Nagoya University
(7) National Space Development Agency of Japan / Earth Observation Research Center
An increase of tropospheric aerosols, which act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), can cause an increase in the cloud albedo and lifetime, through which aerosol has a strong impact on the climate system of the earth, known as the indirect climate effect of aerosols. Because clouds and aerosols are short-lived constituents distributed inhomogenerously, it is difficult to access the accurate forcing by the aerosol indirect effect. General circulation models are insufficient for studying the aerosol-cloud interaction process because of lack of detailed microphysical mechanism in the models. On the other hand, use of a cloud resolving model including an explicit cloud microphysical scheme is promising, because satellite datasets of cloud parameters became available in these days for detailed comparison with simulation results.
In this study, we developed a non-hydrostatic cloud resolving model based on the Meteorological Research Institute / Numerical Prediction Division unitied Nonhydrostatic Model coupled with the cloud microphysical scheme with a spectral explicit bin method of the Hebrew University Model which treats the CCN effect explicitly. The model is nested to the re-analysis data and CCN distribution made from an aerosol transport model to represent the realistic atmospheric condition.
Model simulations have been performed for the second half of Mar. and the first half of Apr. in 2003. The results are compared with the cloud parameters of retrieved datasets from TERRA/MODIS satellite-borne imager. A general agreement between numerical simulation results and satellite-retrieved results of cloud liquid water and effective particle radius of low level clouds. The results are compared with the parameters obtained by flight observations also. That has insisted the difference of the amount of CCN between the input of model simulations and the observations reflects the tendency of cloud parameters between the result of simulations and the observations.
Submittal Information
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Center for Climate System Research, the University of Tokyo | |
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4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8904 | |
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iguchi@ccsr.u-tokyo.ac.jp | |