Toward Understanding the Simulated Phase Partitioning of Arctic
Single-Layer Mixed-Phase Clouds in E3SM
Abstract
Significant changes are found in the modeled phase partitioning of
Arctic mixed-phase clouds in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy
Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Atmosphere Model version 1 (EAMv1)
compared to its predecessor, the Community Atmosphere Model version 5
(CAM5). In this study, we aim to understand how the changes in modeled
mixed-phase cloud properties are attributed to the updates made in the
EAMv1 physical parameterizations. Impacts of the Classical Nucleation
Theory (CNT) ice nucleation scheme, the Cloud Layer Unified By Binormals
(CLUBB) parameterization, and updated Morrison and Gettelman
microphysical scheme (MG2) are examined. Sensitivity experiments using
the short-term hindcast approach are performed to isolate the impact of
these new features on simulated mixed-phase clouds. Results are compared
to the DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mixed-Phase Arctic
Cloud Experiment (M-PACE) observations. We find that mixed-phase clouds
simulated in EAMv1 are overly dominated by supercooled liquid and cloud
ice water is substantially underestimated. The individual change of
physical parameterizations is found to decrease cloud ice water mass
mixing ratio in EAMv1 simulated single-layer mixed-phase clouds. A
budget analysis of detailed cloud microphysical processes suggests that
the lack of ice particles that participate in the mass growth processes
strongly inhibits the mass mixing ratio of cloud ice. The insufficient
heterogeneous ice nucleation at temperatures warmer than -15C in CNT and
the negligible ice processes in CLUBB are primarily responsible for the
significant underestimation of cloud ice water content in the Arctic
single-layer mixed-phase clouds.