Intra-cloud Microphysical Variability Obtained from Large-eddy
Simulations using the Super-droplet Method
Abstract
In this study, the super droplet-method (SDM) is used in large-eddy
simulations of an isolated cumulus congestus observed during the 1995
Small Cumulus Microphysics Study field project in order to investigate
the intra-cloud variability associated with entrainment and mixing. The
SDM is a Lagrangian particle-based method for cloud microphysics that
provides droplet size distributions (DSD) coupled to the simulated
cloud-scale dynamics. The authors show that sensitivity to the spatial
resolution and the initial number of particles is larger, and
sensitivity to the initial conditions is smaller, when the order of the
DSD moment is smaller. Through the use of simulations with reliable
statistics, microphysical variability is investigated at scales of ∼ 100
m that can be considered well resolved in both the numerical simulations
and in-situ aircraft observations. Large spatial variability in cloudy
volumes is shown to be strongly affected by entrainment. Mean values of
the adiabatic fraction (AF), cloud droplet number concentration, and the
cubed ratio of the mean volume radius and the effective radius (k) agree
well with observations in the middle and upper cloud layers. Moreover,
the AF and k values are found to be positively correlated, and the
reduction of the mean volume radius scaled by its adiabatic value with
the decrease of the mean droplet concentration scaled by its adiabatic
value is found to be smaller than the theoretical prediction of
homogeneous mixing. The latter supports the notion of inhomogeneous
mixing due to entrainment.