Cloud Processes Group

Convective clouds play an important role in the global energy balance through vertical transport and a redistribution of water and energy through the depth of the atmosphere. Since the processes that determine the lifecycle of these clouds and their feedbacks operate over a large range of scales, it is particularly challenging to characterize their impact on the climate system.

To improve the characterization of convective clouds and their representation in climate models, the BNL Cloud Processes Group:

• Use ARM observations to develop new retrievals of entrainment rate that operate across the spectrum of shallow-to-deep convection. These retrievals are used to determine the environmental factors that affect entrainment rate magnitude, and how these dependencies change with convective strength.
• Use large-eddy simulations with size-resolved (bin) microphysics in combination with ARM cloud radar observations to investigate the sensitivities of simulated cumulus cloud characteristics to model forcing and physics.
• Explore the use of dual-polarization Doppler radar observations to constrain model convective simulations using key radar structures (e.g., updraft properties and melting layer profiles) during MC3E campaign events to evaluate modeled microphysical processes.