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The Role of Radiation in Heating the Clear-Air Convective Boundary Layer: Revisiting CASES-97

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Abstract

Using data for 3 days in the Cooperative Atmosphere-Surface Exchange Study 1997 field experiment that are analyzed in LeMone et al. (Boundary-Layer Meteorol 104:1–52, 2002, hereafter L2002), it is shown that direct radiative heating can have a significant role in warming the nearly cloudless fair-weather convective boundary layer (CBL). Radiative heating becomes especially important in the presence of aerosols in the CBL, with a moist layer above the CBL also contributing. Not only does inclusion of radiative heating help “close” their potential-temperature budgets, but it affects entrainment estimates. Combined, radiative heating rates are of the order of 0.2 K h−1, based on calculations using the Rapid-Radiative Transfer Model for general circulation models (RRTMG) code in a single-column version of the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting model and estimates of aerosol heating published in L2002. Our current estimates of clear-air direct radiative heating differ from the estimates in L2002 because the surface skin temperature was not included in the earlier calculations. Upwelling and downwelling longwave radiation computed using the RRTMG code agrees with aircraft measurements within 10–15 W m−2.

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Notes

  1. Note that the clear-air heating values in Table VII of L2002 were added to the computed aerosol heating, so that the columns labeled “aerosol warming” should have read “clear-air plus aerosol warming”; for correct values, see our Table 2.

  2. U.S. National Science Foundation; U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

  3. The other sites only sampled net radiation and downwelling shortwave radiation rather than upwelling and downwelling shortwave and longwave radiation.

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Acknowledgements

Radiative heating profiles were evaluated through comparison with offline runs of the Fu–Liou–Gu radiation code by Cenlin He of NCAR; both he and M. LeMone benefitted from advice and comments by Yu Gu of UCLA. Aerosol heating profiles in Table 2 were supplied by Stuart McKeen (NOAA, personal communication, 2000). Data compilations by Kyoko Ikeda (NCAR) were invaluable in reconstructing surface fluxes and aircraft flux profiles, so that we could replicate the flux divergences in the L2002 budgets. We also wish to acknowledge the staff/participants from the NOAA Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division, the University of Wyoming, Argonne National Laboratory and NCAR’s Environmental Observations Laboratory staff for collection, documentation, and processing of the data, responding to our many questions, and ultimately making the data available online. Conversations with Larry Oolman of University of Wyoming and Donald Lenschow of NCAR informed our evaluation of near-surface aircraft measurements. Finally, we wish to thank the three reviewers for their helpful and incisive comments. LeMone and Dudhia are supported by NCAR, which is supported by the National Science Foundation. Angevine is supported by the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

    Margaret A. LeMone & Jimy Dudhia

  2. CIRES, University of Colorado, and NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA

    Wayne M. Angevine

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  1. Margaret A. LeMone
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  2. Wayne M. Angevine
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  3. Jimy Dudhia
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Correspondence to Margaret A. LeMone.

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Margaret A. LeMone and Jimy Dudhia: NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

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LeMone, M.A., Angevine, W.M. & Dudhia, J. The Role of Radiation in Heating the Clear-Air Convective Boundary Layer: Revisiting CASES-97. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 178, 341–361 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-020-00577-y

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