Session: C12

Poster: M54A

A semi-empirical evaluation of cloud activation schemes in climate models

Allison McComiskey; Graham Feingold; Pavlos Kollias; Edward Luke

NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, USA

Leading author: allison.mccomiskey@noaa.gov

Boundary layer clouds have a strong influence on climate sensitivity yet present a challenge for
climate studies. Climate models struggle to represent the processes that drive shallow cloud
development, morphology, interactions with aerosols, and their consequent radiative forcing. Marked
uncertainties are associated with cloud drop activation, which influences all of these properties. We
employ an empirical approach to representing droplet activation that uses probability distribution
functions (PDF) of cloud and aerosol properties over a representative time/area taken from high
temporal resolution, point-based measurements. The approach involves building PDFs from radar and
radiometer observations that capture the variance across a larger area. Droplet activation is calculated
using a cloud parcel model, with model input in the form of random sampling of a joint PDF between
the cloud liquid water and vertical velocity, in conjunction with a PDF of observed aerosol properties.
This results in knowing the full range of potential activation within the area of interest rather than just
the mean. The cloud parcel model is used in various modes to compare the observationally-based
activation to various activation schemes used in climate models. Knowing the range of potential
activation in a given region or cloud regime from the observations also provides information on the
desired uncertainty bounds in the model activation schemes.