A New Heuristic Lagrangian Marine Boundary Layer Cloud Model

Abstract

A new heuristic model of stratocumulus cloudiness in the inversion-capped marine boundary layer is developed and tested. The essential ingredient is a new method for predicting the statistical distribution of temperature and specific humidity at the inversion base under partially decoupled conditions along steady-state marine boundary layer (MBL) trajectories. MBL decoupling is parameterized as an increasing function of the height difference between the inversion base and lifting condensation level (LCL) of the mixed-layer air. Required inputs are sea surface temperature (SST), free air (above inversion) temperature and humidity, subsidence velocity, and mean boundary layer wind speed. Upstream boundary conditions must also be specified but have little influence at sufficient downstream distances (>2000 km). The model is applied to the cold advection regime of the northeastern subtropical Pacific and to both warm and cold advection regimes of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. The model is conceptually simple and avoids explicit calculation of several important physical processes. Nevertheless, it is at least qualitatively successful in predicting both the climatological mean properties and climate anomaly variations of MBL stratocumulus in both regions. These results suggest that, regardless of other properties, successful MBL stratocumulus models will need to accurately predict inversion base height and the LCL and they will have to account for downstream memory effects.