Application of ARM Cloud Radar Simulator to GCMs: Plan, Issues, and Preliminary Results

Abstract:

It has been challenging to directly compare ARM ground-based cloud radar measurements with climate model output because of limitations or features of the observing process. To address this issue, an ongoing effort in ARM is to implement ARM cloud radar simulator, similar to satellite simulators that have been widely used in the global climate modeling community, to convert model data into pseudo-ARM cloud radar observations. The simulator mimics the instrument view of a narrow atmospheric column (as compared to a large GCM grid-cell) thus allowing meaningful comparison between model output and ARM cloud observations. This work is being closely coordinated with the CFMIP (the Cloud-Feedback Model Intercomparison Project) Observation Simulator Package (COSP, www.cfmip.net; Bodas-Salcedo et al. 2011) project. The goal is to incorporate ARM simulators into COSP with the global climate modeling community as the target user.

This poster provides details about the implementation plan, discusses potential issues with ground-based simulators for both ARM radars, and presents preliminary results in evaluating the DOE Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) simulated clouds with ARM radar observations through applying the ARM radar simulator to ACME. Future plans on this project are discussed.

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.