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Diagnosing the ice crystal enhancement factor in the tropics
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Author | Simpson, Joanne Starr, David O'C Matsui, Toshihisa Zhang, Minghua Lang, Stephen Li, Xiaowen Tao, Wei-Kuo Zeng, Xiping Xie, Shaocheng |
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Description | Recent modeling studies have revealed that ice crystal number concentration is one of the dominant factors in the effect of clouds on radiation. Since the ice crystal enhancement factor and ice nuclei concentration determine the concentration, they are both important in quantifying the contribution of increased ice nuclei to global warming. In this study, long-term cloud-resolving model (CRM) simulations are compared with field observations to estimate the ice crystal enhancement factor in tropical and midlatitudinal clouds, respectively. It is found that the factor in tropical clouds is ~10 3-104 times larger than that of mid-latitudinal ones, which makes physical sense because entrainment and detrainment in the Tropics are much stronger than in middle latitudes. The effect of entrainment/detrainment on the enhancement factor, especially in tropical clouds, suggests that cloud microphysical parameterizations should be coupled with subgrid turbulence parameterizations within CRMs to obtain a more accurate depiction of cloud-radiative forcing. |
| File Size | 2316569 |
| Page Count | 41 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_20090032030 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t2w42r230 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 2009-06-09 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Meteorology And Climatology Radiation Effects Tropical Regions Turbulence Cloud Physics Atmospheric Models Clouds Meteorology Global Warming Radiative Forcing Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports ServerĀ (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |