Inclusion of Radiation in Mesoscale Models

Abstract

In recent years large efforts were made to develop efficient and accurate computer codes for modeling the radiative transfer in large-scale models (GCMs and climate models). These resulted in a relatively high standard for radiative transfer models. In the many 3D mesoscale models, however, radiative energy transfer is often still treated in a less careful way. Reasons for this are, for example, that radiation as a heating or cooling source plays a more significant role in longterm climate modeling than in most smaller-timescale cases investigated by most mesoscale modeling equations. However, in the near future it will be also possible to incorporate more physical and consistent radiation parameterizations in “operational” mesoscale models.