Print Email Facebook Twitter A mixed-layer model study of the stratocumulus response to changes in large-scale conditions Title A mixed-layer model study of the stratocumulus response to changes in large-scale conditions Author De Roode, S.R. Siebesma, A.P. Dal Gesso, S. Jonker, H.J.J. Schalkwijk, J. Sival, J. Faculty Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department Geoscience & Remote Sensing Date 2014-12-17 Abstract A mixed-layer model is used to study the response of stratocumulus equilibrium state solutions to perturbations of cloud controlling factors which include the sea surface temperature, the specific humidity and temperature in the free troposphere, as well as the large-scale divergence and horizontal wind speed. In the first set of experiments, we assess the effect of a change in a single forcing condition while keeping the entrainment rate fixed, while in the second set, the entrainment rate is allowed to respond. The role of the entrainment rate is exemplified from an experiment in which the sea surface temperature is increased. An analysis of the budget equation for heat and moisture demonstrates that for a fixed entrainment rate, the stratocumulus liquid water path (LWP) will increase since the moistening from the surface evaporation dominates the warming effect. By contrast, if the response of the entrainment rate to the change in the surface forcing is sufficiently strong, enhanced mixing of dry and warm inversion air will cause a thinning of the cloud layer. If the entrainment warming effect is sufficiently strong, the surface sensible heat flux will decrease, as opposed to an increase which will occur for a fixed entrainment rate. It is argued that the surface evaporation will always increase for an increase in the sea surface temperature, and this change will be enlarged if the entrainment rate increases. These experiments aid the interpretation of results of similar simulations with single-column model versions of climate models carried out in the framework of the CFMIP-GCSS Intercomparison of Large-Eddy and Single-Column Models (CGILS) project. Because in a large-scale models, the entrainment response to changes in the large-scale forcing conditions depends on the details of the parameterization of turbulent and convective transport, intermodel differences in the sign of the LWP response may be well attributable to differences in the entrainment response. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8cc11627-2583-4d30-85c1-a2eb6685df89 DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/2014MS000347 Publisher American Geophysical Union ISSN 1942-2466 Source Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 6 (4), 2014 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2014 The AuthorsThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License Files PDF DeRoode_2014.pdf 1.28 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:8cc11627-2583-4d30-85c1-a2eb6685df89/datastream/OBJ/view