As the formative agents of cloud droplets, aerosols play an undeniably important role in the development of clouds and precipitation. Few meteorological models have been developed or adapted to simulate aerosols and their contribution to cloud and precipitation forming processes. The Weather Research and Forecasting Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model has been developed to couple atmospheric chemistry with meteorology within a mesoscale modeling framework. Provided that the model physics are robust, this framework allows the feedbacks between aerosol chemistry, cloud physics, and dynamics to be investigated.
This study focuses on the effects of aerosols on meteorology, specifically, the interaction of aerosol chemical species with microphysical processes represented within the framework of the WRF-Chem. Aerosols are represented by eight size bins using the Model for Simulating Aerosol Interactions and Chemistry (MOSAIC) sectional parameterization, which is linked to the Purdue Lin bulk microphysics scheme. The aim of this study is to examine the sensitivity of deep convective precipitation modeled by the WRF-Chem (2-D) to varying aerosol number concentration and aerosol type. A systematic study has been performed regarding the effect of aerosols on parameters such as total precipitation, precipitation efficiency, and updraft/downdraft speed within idealized maritime and continental thermodynamic environments. To qualitatively assess the performance of the model, results of simulations will be compared to results of previous works.
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