• Atmosphere
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.321-329
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• 2013

This study examines the effect of aerosols on the vertical invigoration of continental stratiform clouds, using a dataset of Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Intensive Operational Period (IOP, March 2000) at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. To provide further support to our observation-based findings, the weather research and forecasting (WRF) sensitivity simulations with changing cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations have been carried out for the golden episode over SGP. First, cross correlation between observed aerosol scattering coefficient and cloud liquid water path (LWP) with a 160-minutes lag is the highest of r = 0.83 for the selected episode, which may be attributable to cloud vertical invigoration induced by an increase in aerosol loading. Modeled cloud fractions in a control run are well matched with the observation in the perspective of cloud morphology and lasting period. It is also found through a simple sensitivity with a change in CCN that aerosol invigoration (AIV) effect on stratiform cloud organization is attributable to a change in the cloud microphysics as well as dynamics such as the corresponding modification of cloud number concentrations, drop size, and latent heating rate, etc. This study suggests a possible cloud vertical invigoration even in the continental stratiform clouds due to aerosol enhancement in spite of a limited analysis based on a few observed continental cloud cases.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.1-18
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• 2020

This study presented the effects of the assumed mass-size relationship for snow on the simulated surface precipitation by using cloud microphysics parameterizations in Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The selected cloud microphysics parameterizations are WRF Double-Moment 6-class (WDM6) and WRF Single-Moment 6-class (WSM6) in the WRF model. We replaced the mass-size relationship for snow in WDM6 and WSM6 with Thompson's mass-size relationship retrieved from measurement data. The sensitivity of the modified WDM6 and WSM6 was tested for the idealized 2-dimensional squall line and winter precipitation system over the Korean peninsula, respectively. The modified WDM6 and WSM6 resulted in the increase of graupel/rain mixing ratios and the decrease of snow mixing ratio in the low atmosphere. The changes of hydrometeor mixing ratio and surface precipitation could be due to the collision-coalescence process between raindrops and snow and the graupel melting process.

• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.113-141
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• 2021

The impacts of ice clouds on the energy budget of the Earth and their representation in climate models have been identified as important and unsolved problems. Ice clouds consist almost exclusively of non-spherical ice crystals with various shapes and sizes. To determine the influences of ice clouds on solar and infrared radiation as required for remote sensing retrievals and numerical models, knowledge of scattering and microphysical properties of ice crystals is required. A conventional method for representing the radiative properties of ice clouds in satellite retrieval algorithms and numerical models is to combine measured microphysical properties of ice crystals from field campaigns and pre-calculated single-scattering libraries of different shapes and sizes of ice crystals, which depend heavily on microphysical and scattering properties of ice crystals. However, large discrepancies between theoretical calculations and observations of the radiative properties of ice clouds have been reported. Electron microscopy images of ice crystals grown in laboratories and captured by balloons show varying degrees of complex morphologies in sub-micron (e.g., surface roughness) and super-micron (e.g., inhomogeneous internal and external structures) scales that may cause these discrepancies. In this study, the current idealized models representing morphologies of ice crystals and the corresponding numerical methods (e.g., geometric optics, discrete dipole approximation, T-matrix, etc.) to calculate the single-scattering properties of ice crystals are reviewed. Current problems and difficulties in the calculations of the single-scattering properties of atmospheric ice crystals are addressed in terms of cloud microphysics. Future directions to develop physically consistent ice-crystal models are also discussed.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.15-23
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• 1992

Development of cumulus is studied by numerically integrating the equation of motion equations of conservation for water vapor mixing ratio, and the thermodynamic energy equuation. We use the terrain-following coordinate system called z'-coordinate system, in which we can easily treat any calculation domain with terrain configuration such as mountains. The model domain of calculation is restricted vertically to 4.Skin and horizontally to 100 km, has a bell-type mountain in the centeral part. Four cases are considered, one in a neutral environment, second in a slightly stable environment, third in a environment decreasing water content with low value of initial water vapor mixing ratio, the fourth in a case with higher vapor gradient. The more the atmosphere is unstable, the more cumulus develops easily and the more water vapors is abundant, the more cumulus develops easily too. More detailed cloud microphysics parameterizations and wet deposition must be conridered to use in air pollutants prediction model.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.555-566
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• 2009

Precipitable water vapor (PWV) derived from a numerical weather prediction (NWP) model were compared to observations derived from ground-based Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. The model data compared were from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model short-range forecasts on nested grids. The numerical experimets were performed by selecting the cloud microphysics schemes and for the comparisons, the Changma period of 2008 was selected. The observational data were derived from GPS measurements at 9-sites in South Korea over a 1-month period, in the middle of June-July 2008. In general, the WRF model demonstrated considerable skill in reproducing the temporal and spatial evolution of the PWV as depicted by the GPS estimations. The correlation between forecasts and GPS estimates of PWV depreciated slowly with increasing forecast times. Comparing simulations with a resolution of 18 km and 6 km showed no obvious PWV dependence on resolution. Besides, GPS and the model PWV data were found to be in quite good agreement with data derived from radiosondes. These results indicated that the GPS-derived PWV data, with high temporal and spatial resolution, are very useful for meteorological applications.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.105-112
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• 2019

Measurements of vertical air motion and microphysics are essential for improving our understanding of convective clouds. In this paper, the author reviews the current research on the retrieval of vertical air motions using the cloud radar. At radar wavelengths of 3 mm (W-band radar; 94-GHz radar; cloud radar), the raindrop backscattering cross-section (${\sigma}b$) varies between successive maxima and minima as a function of the raindrop diameter (D) that are well described by Mie theory. The first Mie minimum in the backscattering cross-section occurs at D~1.68 mm, which translates to a raindrop terminal fall velocity of ${\sim}5.85m\;s^{-1}$ based on the Gunn and Kinzer relationship. Since raindrop diameters often exceed this size, the signal is captured in the radar Doppler spectrum, and thus, the location of the first Mie minimum can be used as a reference for retrieving the vertical air motion. The Mie technique is applied to radar Doppler spectra from the surface-based and airborne, upward pointing W-band radars. The contributions of aircraft motion to the vertical air motion are also described and further the first-order aircraft motion corrected equation is presented. The review also shows that the separate spectral peaks due to the cloud droplets can provide independent validation of the Mie technique retrieved vertical air motion using the cloud droplets as a tracer of vertical air motion.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.630-645
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• 2009

The tropopause fold event that took place on January 1, 1997 over mid-region on the Korean Peninsula is examined by means of a numerical simulation based on a Mesoscale Model (MM5). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of moisture in reinforcing a tropopause fold linked to an explosive cyclone. Two types of simulations were carried out; 1) simulations for moist conditions in which full physical and dynamic processes are considered and 2) simulations for dry conditions in which cumulus parameterization and cloud microphysics process are excluded. The results of the moist condition simulations demonstrate that the intensity of the central pressure of the cyclone was overestimated compared with the observed values and that the location of the center and the pressure deepening rates (-17 hPa/12 hr) complied with the observed values. The potential vorticity (PV) anomaly on the isentropic surface at 305 K continued to move in a southeast direction on January 1, 1997 and thus created a single tube of tropopause fold covering the northern and the middle area of the Korean Peninsula and reaching the ground surface at 0300 UTC and 0600 UTC. The results of the dry condition simulations show that the tropopause descended to 500 and 670 hPa in 0300 and 0600 UTC, respectively at the same location for the moist condition simulation; however, there was no deep tropopause fold observed. A comparison of the simulated data between the moist and the dry conditions suggests that a deep tropopause fold should happen when there is sufficient moist in the atmosphere and significantly large PV in the lower atmosphere pulls down the upper atmosphere rather than when the tropopause descends itself due to dynamic causes. Thus, it is estimated that moisture in the atmosphere should have played a crucial role in a deep tropopause fold process.

• Atmosphere
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.421-437
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• 2020

The effects of the terminal fall velocity-diameter relationship for raindrops, which is prescribed based on the measurement, on the simulated surface precipitation over Korea during summer season were investigated in our study. Two rainfall cases, 1-month summer precipitation and mesoscale rainfall, have been simulated using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The selected cloud microphysics parameterizations are WRF Single-Moment 5-class (WSM5) and WRF Single-Moment 6-class (WSM6) in the WRF model. The measured terminal fall-diameter relationship for raindrops by Gunn and Kinzer (1949) was applied in both WSM5 and WSM6. The sensitivity experiments with WSM5 and WSM6, applying the measured fall-diameter relationship, presents the different responses in simulated precipitation amount for the 1-month summer precipitation case. Precipitation increases with WSM5, thus enhancing the precipitation statistical skills. However, precipitation decreases with WSM6 leading to the deterioration of precipitation statistical skills. For the mesoscale rainfall case, precipitation increases with both WSM5 and WSM6, which further enhances the positive bias in precipitation amount.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.857-870
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• 2007

The structure and evolution of a thunderstorm outflow in two dimensions with no environmental wind are investigated using a cloud-resolving model with explicit liquid-ice phase microphysical processes (ARPS: Advanced Regional Prediction System). The turbulence structure of the outflow is explicitly resolved with a high-resolution grid size of 50m. The simulated single-cell storm and its associated Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) billows are found to have the lift stages of development maturity, and decay. The secondary pulsation and splitting of convective cells resulted from interactions between cloud dynamics and microphysics are observed. The cooled downdrafts caused by the evaporation of rain and hail in the relatively dry lower atmosphere result in thunderstorm cold-air outflow. The outflow head propagates with almost constant speed. The KH billows formed by the KH instability cause turbulence mixing from the top of the outflow and control the structure of the outflow. Ihe KH billows are initiated at the outflow head, and pow and decay as moving rearward relative to the gust front. The numerical simulation results of the ratio of the horizontal wavelength of the fastest growing perturbation to the critical shear-layer depth and the ratio of the horizontal wavelength of the billow to its maximum amplitude are matched well with the results of other studies.