Sensitivity of the Grid-point Atmospheric Model of IAP LASG (GAMIL1.1.0) climate simulations to cloud droplet effective radius and liquid water path

This paper documents a study to examine the sensitivity to cloud droplet effective radius and liquid water path and the alleviation the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere and at the surface in the latest version of the Grid-point Atmospheric Model of the State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) (GAMIL1.1.0). Considerable negative biases in all flux components, and thus an energy imbalance, are found in GAMIL1.1.0. In order to alleviate the energy imbalance, two modifications, namely an increase in cloud droplet effective radius and a decrease in cloud liquid water path, have been made to the cloud properties used in GAMIL. With the increased cloud droplet effective radius, the single scattering albedo of clouds is reduced, and thus the reflection of solar radiation into space by clouds is reduced and the net solar radiation flux at the top of the atmosphere is increased. With the reduced cloud optical depth, the net surface shortwave radiation flux is increased, causing a net warming over the land surface. This results in an increase in both sensible and latent heat fluxes over the land regions, which is largely balanced by the increased terrestrial radiation fluxes. Consequently, the energy balance at the top of atmosphere and at the surface is achieved with energy flux components consistent with available satellite observations.