Observed and Simulated Relationships Between Tropical Deep Convective Updraft Dynamics and Ice Microphysics

Abstract:

Relationships between tropical deep convective updraft cores and regions of high ice water content encountered by the Falcon-20 aircraft during the High Altitude Ice Crystals/High Ice Water Content (HAIC/HIWC) campaign in Darwin, Australia are analyzed and compared with high-resolution WRF simulation output. Most flight legs were performed at temperatures near -30°C and -40°C, where relationships between ice water content and vertical velocity are somewhat similar in observations and simulations, although observed ice water contents tend to be a bit higher for a given vertical velocity. This difference can be traced to substantial differences in ice and liquid properties in convective updraft cores at -10°C, where simulated updrafts tend to have far more graupel and liquid water than observed updrafts for a given vertical velocity, although total condensate contents are similar. This partly leads to the commonly observed reflectivity high bias in simulations, which overshadows observed and simulated large snow water contents that commonly exceed 2 g m^-3 without reflectivities exceeding 25 dBZ. It appears that magnitudes of microphysical processes operating in mixed phase conditions between 0 and -10°C are quite different in observed and simulated updrafts of similar size and strength, and this difference may be common to most microphysics schemes. Mixed phase properties in convective updrafts end up impacting ice sedimentation and detrainment from convective cores, which go on to impact precipitation efficiency, distribution of rain rates, and likely the life cycle of the convective system. Possible reasons for differences in observed and simulated updrafts are explored.