The Sensitivity of Diagnostic Radiative Properties to Cloud Microphysics among Cloud-Resolving Model Simulations

Abstract

This study examines the sensitivity of diagnosed radiative fluxes and heating rates to different treatments of cloud microphysics among cloud-resolving models (CRMs). The domain-averaged CRM outputs are used in this calculation. The impacts of the cloud overlap and uniform hydrometeor assumptions are examined using outputs having spatially varying cloud fields from a single CRM. It is found that the cloud overlap assumption impacts the diagnosis more significantly than the uniform hydrometeor assumption for all radiative fluxes. This is also the case for the longwave radiative cooling rate except for a layer above 7 km where it is more significantly impacted by the uniform hydrometeor assumption. The radiative cooling above upper-tropospheric anvils and the warming below these clouds are overestimated by about 0.5 K day?1 using the domain-averaged outputs. These results are used to further quantify intermodel differences in radiative properties due to different treatments of cloud microphysics among 10 CRMs. The magnitudes of the intermodel differences, as measured by the deviations from the consensus of 10 CRMs, are found to be smaller than those due to the cloud overlap assumption and comparable to those due to the uniform hydrometeor assumption for most shortwave radiative fluxes and the net radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) and at the surface. For all longwave radiative fluxes, they are smaller than those due to cloud overlap and uniform hydrometeor assumptions. The consensus of all diagnosed radiative fluxes except for the surface downward shortwave flux agrees with observations to a degree that is close to the uncertainties of satellite- and ground-based measurements.