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Simulated precipitation diurnal cycles over East Asia using different CAPE-based convective closure schemes in WRF model

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Abstract

Closure assumption in convection parameterization is critical for reasonably modeling the precipitation diurnal variation in climate models. This study evaluates the precipitation diurnal cycles over East Asia during the summer of 2008 simulated with three convective available potential energy (CAPE) based closure assumptions, i.e. CAPE-relaxing (CR), quasi-equilibrium (QE), and free-troposphere QE (FTQE) and investigates the impacts of planetary boundary layer (PBL) mixing, advection, and radiation on the simulation by using the weather research and forecasting model. The sensitivity of precipitation diurnal cycle to PBL vertical resolution is also examined. Results show that the precipitation diurnal cycles simulated with different closures all exhibit large biases over land and the simulation with FTQE closure agrees best with observation. In the simulation with QE closure, the intensified PBL mixing after sunrise is responsible for the late-morning peak of convective precipitation, while in the simulation with FTQE closure, convective precipitation is mainly controlled by advection cooling. The relative contributions of different processes to precipitation formation are functions of rainfall intensity. In the simulation with CR closure, the dynamical equilibrium in the free troposphere still can be reached, implying the complex cause-effect relationship between atmospheric motion and convection. For simulations in which total CAPE is consumed for the closures, daytime precipitation decreases with increased PBL resolution because thinner model layer produces lower convection starting layer, leading to stronger downdraft cooling and CAPE consumption. The sensitivity of the diurnal peak time of precipitation to closure assumption can also be modulated by changes in PBL vertical resolution. The results of this study help us better understand the impacts of various processes on the precipitation diurnal cycle simulation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank two anonymous reviewers for their careful reviews and constructive comments. We also thank Minghuai Wang of Nanjing University for his valuable discussions and Jian Tang of China Meteorological Administration for processing the station rain-gauge data. This work is jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41675101 and 41305084) and National key research and development program (2016YFA0602104 and 2016YFA0600504). The contribution of Yun Qian in this study is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science as part of the Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated for DOE by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. All the graphics in this study are created by the NCAR Command Language (NCL; doi:10.5065/D6WD3XH5).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CMA-NJU Joint Laboratory for Climate Prediction Studies, Institute for Climate and Global Change Research, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Ben Yang, Yang Zhou, Yaocun Zhang, Anning Huang & Lujun Zhang

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Climate Change, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

    Ben Yang, Yang Zhou, Yaocun Zhang, Anning Huang & Lujun Zhang

  3. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

    Yun Qian

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  1. Ben Yang
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Correspondence to Yang Zhou.

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Yang, B., Zhou, Y., Zhang, Y. et al. Simulated precipitation diurnal cycles over East Asia using different CAPE-based convective closure schemes in WRF model. Clim Dyn 50, 1639–1658 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3712-z

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