Improved Diurnal Cycle of Precipitation on Land in a Global Non-Hydrostatic Model Using a Revised NSAS Deep Convective Scheme

In relatively coarse-resolution atmospheric models,cumulus parameterization helps account for the effect of subgridscale convection,which produces supplemental rainfall to the grid-scale precipitation and impacts the diurnal cycle of precipitation.In this study,the diurnal cycle of precipitation was studied using the new simplified Arakawa-Schubert scheme in a global non-hydrostatic atmospheric model,i.e.,the Yin-Yang-grid Unified Model for the Atmosphere.Two new diagnostic closures and a convective trigger function were suggested to emphasize the job of the cloud work function corresponding to the free tropospheric large-scale forcing.Numerical results of the 0.25-degree model in 3-month batched real-case simulations revealed an improvement in the diurnal precipitation variation by using a revised trigger function with an enhanced dynamical constraint on the convective initiation and a suitable threshold of the trigger.By reducing the occurrence of convection during peak solar radiation hours,the revised scheme was shown to be effective in delaying the appearance of early-afternoon rainfall peaks over most land areas and accentuating the nocturnal peaks that were wrongly concealed by the more substantial afternoon peak.In addition,the revised scheme enhanced the simulation capability of the precipitation probability density function,such as increasing the extremely low-and high-intensity precipitation events and decreasing small and moderate rainfall events,which contributed to the reduction of precipitation bias over mid-latitude and tropical land areas.

Impact of Revised Trigger and Closure of the Double-Plume Convective Parameterization on Precipitation Simulations over East Asia

A double-plume convective parameterization scheme is revised to improve the precipitation simulation of a global model(Global-to-Regional Integrated Forecast System;GRIST).The improvement is achieved by considering the effects of large-scale dynamic processes on the trigger of deep convection.The closure,based on dynamic CAPE,is improved accordingly to allow other processes to consume CAPE under the more restricted convective trigger condition.The revised convective parameterization is evaluated with a variable-resolution model setup(110–35 km,refined over East Asia).The Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project(AMIP)simulations demonstrate that the revised convective parameterization substantially delays the daytime precipitation peaks over most land areas,leading to an improved simulated diurnal cycle,evidenced by delayed and less frequent afternoon precipitation.Meanwhile,changes to the threshold of the trigger function yield a small impact on the diurnal amplitude of precipitation because of the consistent setting of dCAPE-based trigger and closure.The simulated mean precipitation remains reasonable,with some improvements evident along the southern slopes of the Tibetan Plateau.The revised scheme increases convective precipitation at the lower levels of the windward slope and reduces the large-scale precipitation over the upper slope,ultimately shifting the rainfall peak southward,which is in better agreement with the observations.

Validation for a tropical belt version of WRF: sensitivity tests on radiation and cumulus convection parameterizations

Version 3.9 of WRF-ARW is run with a tropical belt configuration for a period from 2012 to 2016 in this study. The domain covers the entire tropics between 45°S and 45°N with a spatial resolution of about 45 km. In order to verify two radiation schemes and four cumulus convection schemes, eight experiments are performed with different combinations of physics parameterization schemes. The results show that eight experiments present reasonable spatial patterns of surface air temperature and precipitation in boreal summer, with the spatial correlation coefficient (COR) between simulated and observed temperature exceeding 0.95, and that between simulated and observed precipitation ranges from 0.65 to 0.82. The four experiments with the RRTMG radiation scheme show a better performance than the other four experiments with the CAM radiation scheme. In the four experiments with the RRTMG radiation scheme, the COR between simulated and observed surface air temperature is about 0.98, and that between simulated and observed precipitation ranges from 0.76 to 0.82. Comparatively, the two experiments using the new Tiedtke cumulus parameterization scheme can simulate better diurnal variation of precipitation in boreal summer than the other six experiments. In particular, for the diurnal cycle of precipitation over land and ocean, the experiment using the RRTMG radiation scheme and the new Tiedtke cumulus convection scheme shows that the peaks of precipitation rate appear at 0400 LST and 1600 LST, in agreement with observation.

Peculiar Temporal Structure of the South China Sea Summer Monsoon

Beijing located at the junction of four major components of the Asian-Australia monsoon system (the Indian, the western North Pacific, the East Asian subtropical, and the Indonesian-Australian monsoons), the monsoon climate over the South China Sea (SCS) exhibits some unique features. Evidences are presented in this paper to reveal and document the following distinctive features in the temporal structure of the SCS summer monsoon: (1) pronounced monsoon singularities in the lower tropospheric monsoon flows which include the pre-onset and withdrawal easterly surges and the southwesterly monsoon bursts at Julian pentad 34-35 (June 15-24) and pentad 46-47 (August 14-23); (2) four prominent subseasonal cycles (alternative occurrences of climatological active and break monsoons); (3) considerably larger year-to-year variations in convective activity on intraseasonal time scale compared to those over the Bay of Bengal and the Philippine Sea; (4) the redness of the climatological mean spectrum of precipitation/deep convection on synoptic to intraseasonal time scales in the central SCS; (5) a remarkable asymmetry in the seasonal transitions between summer and winter monsoons and an extremely abrupt mid-May transition (the outburst of monsoon rain and the sudden switch in the lower troposphere winds from an easterly to a westerly regime); (6) the bi-modal interannual variation of summer monsoon onset (normal and delayed modes). In addition, the monsoon rainfall displays enormous east-west gradient over the central SCS. Possible causes for these features are discussed. A number of specific science questions concerning some of the peculiar features are raised for the forthcoming SCS monsoon experiment to address.