Abstract
We performed LES simulation of tropical cumulus clouds initialized with
soundings from the RICO field project (vanZanten et al. 2011, JAMES).
Our analysis concentrated on thermodynamic characteristics of convective
clouds, specifically on relationships between the
condensation/evaporation rates and cloud micro-physical and dynamical
parameters. Such relationships are important for developing
parameterizations of the sub-grid latent heat release on the grid size
typical for a mesoscale model. The simulation was conducted using an
integration domain of 50km; about 2000 clouds were selected for analysis
over the course of the 28 hour simulation. The condensation/evaporation
rates were analyzed by stratifying the clouds by their size (cloud top).
The analyzed parameters included, among others, integral mass and
buoyancy flux, cloud and rain water, supersaturation. The results of the
analysis revealed a rather remarkable relationship between integral
latent heat released in a cloud and cloud’s integral mass flux. This
relationship may form the basis for parameterization development of
latent heat release.