Understanding Cloud and Convective Characteristics in Version 1 of the E3SM Atmosphere Model

Shaocheng Xie; Wuyin Lin; Philip J. Rasch; Po Lun Ma; Richard Neale; Vincent E. Larson; Yun Qian; Peter A. Bogenschutz; Peter Caldwell; Philip Cameron-Smith; Jean Christophe Golaz; Salil Mahajan; Balwinder Singh; Qi Tang; Hailong Wang; Jin Ho Yoon; Kai Zhang; Yuying Zhang

doi:10.1029/2018MS001350

Understanding Cloud and Convective Characteristics in Version 1 of the E3SM Atmosphere Model

Shaocheng Xie, Wuyin Lin, Philip J. Rasch, Po Lun Ma, Richard Neale, Vincent E. Larson, Yun Qian, Peter A. Bogenschutz, Peter Caldwell, Philip Cameron-Smith, Jean Christophe Golaz, Salil Mahajan, Balwinder Singh, Qi Tang, Hailong Wang, Jin Ho Yoon, Kai Zhang, Yuying Zhang

Computational Earth Sciences Group

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113 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study provides comprehensive insight into the notable differences in clouds and precipitation simulated by the Energy Exascale Earth System Model Atmosphere Model version 0 and version 1 (EAMv1). Several sensitivity experiments are conducted to isolate the impact of changes in model physics, resolution, and parameter choices on these differences. The overall improvement in EAMv1 clouds and precipitation is primarily attributed to the introduction of a simplified third-order turbulence parameterization Cloud Layers Unified By Binormals (along with the companion changes) for a unified treatment of boundary layer turbulence, shallow convection, and cloud macrophysics, though it also leads to a reduction in subtropical coastal stratocumulus clouds. This lack of stratocumulus clouds is considerably improved by increasing vertical resolution from 30 to 72 layers, but the gain is unfortunately subsequently offset by other retuning to reach the top-of-atmosphere energy balance. Increasing vertical resolution also results in a considerable underestimation of high clouds over the tropical warm pool, primarily due to the selection for numerical stability of a higher air parcel launch level in the deep convection scheme. Increasing horizontal resolution from 1° to 0.25° without retuning leads to considerable degradation in cloud and precipitation fields, with much weaker tropical and subtropical short- and longwave cloud radiative forcing and much stronger precipitation in the intertropical convergence zone, indicating poor scale awareness of the cloud parameterizations. To avoid this degradation, significantly different parameter settings for the low-resolution (1°) and high-resolution (0.25°) were required to achieve optimal performance in EAMv1.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	2618-2644
Number of pages	27
Journal	Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
Volume	10
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2018MS001350
State	Published - Oct 2018

Funding

This research was primarily supported as part of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) project and partially supported by the Climate Model Development and Validation activity, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The model data used in this study can be downloaded at http://portal.nersc.gov/project/m2136/E3SMv1/Xie-convection. The authors thank all E3SM team members for their efforts in developing and supporting the E3SM model. We thank Andrew Gettelman for providing the updated code of CLUBB and MG2 microphysics. Work at LLNL was performed under the auspices of the US DOE by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is operated for DOE by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DEAC06-76RLO 1830. J.-H. Yoon was partially supported by National Research Foundation grant NRF_2017R1A2b4007480. V. Larson was supported by Climate Model Development and Validation grant DE-SC0016287, funded by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. This research used high-performance computing resources from the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility 100 (OLCF) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, supported by the Office of Science of DOE under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 and resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231.

Funders	Funder number
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
U.S. Department of Energy	DE-AC05-00OR22725
Battelle	DEAC06-76RLO 1830
Office of Science	DE-AC02-05CH11231
Biological and Environmental Research
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory	DE-AC52-07NA27344
National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
National Research Foundation of Korea	NRF_2017R1A2b4007480, DE-SC0016287

Keywords

E3SM
EAMv1
cloud and convection
global climate model
model resolution
model tuning

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10.1029/2018MS001350

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Xie, S., Lin, W., Rasch, P. J., Ma, P. L., Neale, R., Larson, V. E., Qian, Y., Bogenschutz, P. A., Caldwell, P., Cameron-Smith, P., Golaz, J. C., Mahajan, S., Singh, B., Tang, Q., Wang, H., Yoon, J. H., Zhang, K., & Zhang, Y. (2018). Understanding Cloud and Convective Characteristics in Version 1 of the E3SM Atmosphere Model. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 10(10), 2618-2644. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018MS001350

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title = "Understanding Cloud and Convective Characteristics in Version 1 of the E3SM Atmosphere Model",

abstract = "This study provides comprehensive insight into the notable differences in clouds and precipitation simulated by the Energy Exascale Earth System Model Atmosphere Model version 0 and version 1 (EAMv1). Several sensitivity experiments are conducted to isolate the impact of changes in model physics, resolution, and parameter choices on these differences. The overall improvement in EAMv1 clouds and precipitation is primarily attributed to the introduction of a simplified third-order turbulence parameterization Cloud Layers Unified By Binormals (along with the companion changes) for a unified treatment of boundary layer turbulence, shallow convection, and cloud macrophysics, though it also leads to a reduction in subtropical coastal stratocumulus clouds. This lack of stratocumulus clouds is considerably improved by increasing vertical resolution from 30 to 72 layers, but the gain is unfortunately subsequently offset by other retuning to reach the top-of-atmosphere energy balance. Increasing vertical resolution also results in a considerable underestimation of high clouds over the tropical warm pool, primarily due to the selection for numerical stability of a higher air parcel launch level in the deep convection scheme. Increasing horizontal resolution from 1° to 0.25° without retuning leads to considerable degradation in cloud and precipitation fields, with much weaker tropical and subtropical short- and longwave cloud radiative forcing and much stronger precipitation in the intertropical convergence zone, indicating poor scale awareness of the cloud parameterizations. To avoid this degradation, significantly different parameter settings for the low-resolution (1°) and high-resolution (0.25°) were required to achieve optimal performance in EAMv1.",

keywords = "E3SM, EAMv1, cloud and convection, global climate model, model resolution, model tuning",

author = "Shaocheng Xie and Wuyin Lin and Rasch, {Philip J.} and Ma, {Po Lun} and Richard Neale and Larson, {Vincent E.} and Yun Qian and Bogenschutz, {Peter A.} and Peter Caldwell and Philip Cameron-Smith and Golaz, {Jean Christophe} and Salil Mahajan and Balwinder Singh and Qi Tang and Hailong Wang and Yoon, {Jin Ho} and Kai Zhang and Yuying Zhang",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}2018. The Authors.",

year = "2018",

month = oct,

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Xie, S, Lin, W, Rasch, PJ, Ma, PL, Neale, R, Larson, VE, Qian, Y, Bogenschutz, PA, Caldwell, P, Cameron-Smith, P, Golaz, JC, Mahajan, S, Singh, B, Tang, Q, Wang, H, Yoon, JH, Zhang, K & Zhang, Y 2018, 'Understanding Cloud and Convective Characteristics in Version 1 of the E3SM Atmosphere Model', Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, vol. 10, no. 10, pp. 2618-2644. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018MS001350

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AU - Xie, Shaocheng

AU - Lin, Wuyin

AU - Rasch, Philip J.

AU - Ma, Po Lun

AU - Neale, Richard

AU - Larson, Vincent E.

AU - Qian, Yun

AU - Bogenschutz, Peter A.

AU - Caldwell, Peter

AU - Cameron-Smith, Philip

AU - Golaz, Jean Christophe

AU - Mahajan, Salil

AU - Singh, Balwinder

AU - Tang, Qi

AU - Wang, Hailong

AU - Yoon, Jin Ho

AU - Zhang, Kai

AU - Zhang, Yuying

PY - 2018/10

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N2 - This study provides comprehensive insight into the notable differences in clouds and precipitation simulated by the Energy Exascale Earth System Model Atmosphere Model version 0 and version 1 (EAMv1). Several sensitivity experiments are conducted to isolate the impact of changes in model physics, resolution, and parameter choices on these differences. The overall improvement in EAMv1 clouds and precipitation is primarily attributed to the introduction of a simplified third-order turbulence parameterization Cloud Layers Unified By Binormals (along with the companion changes) for a unified treatment of boundary layer turbulence, shallow convection, and cloud macrophysics, though it also leads to a reduction in subtropical coastal stratocumulus clouds. This lack of stratocumulus clouds is considerably improved by increasing vertical resolution from 30 to 72 layers, but the gain is unfortunately subsequently offset by other retuning to reach the top-of-atmosphere energy balance. Increasing vertical resolution also results in a considerable underestimation of high clouds over the tropical warm pool, primarily due to the selection for numerical stability of a higher air parcel launch level in the deep convection scheme. Increasing horizontal resolution from 1° to 0.25° without retuning leads to considerable degradation in cloud and precipitation fields, with much weaker tropical and subtropical short- and longwave cloud radiative forcing and much stronger precipitation in the intertropical convergence zone, indicating poor scale awareness of the cloud parameterizations. To avoid this degradation, significantly different parameter settings for the low-resolution (1°) and high-resolution (0.25°) were required to achieve optimal performance in EAMv1.

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Understanding Cloud and Convective Characteristics in Version 1 of the E3SM Atmosphere Model

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