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Analyzing The Grell-freitas Convection Scheme From Hydrostatic To Non Hydrostatic Scales Within A Global Model

Abstract

The authors implemented the Grell–Freitas (GF) parameterization of convection in which the cloud-base mass flux varies quadratically as a function of the convective updraft fraction in the global nonhydrostatic Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS). They evaluated the performance of GF using quasi-uniform meshes and a variable-resolution mesh centered over South America, the resolution of which varied between hydrostatic (50 km) and nonhydrostatic (3 km) scales. Four-day forecasts using a 50-km and a 15-km quasi-uniform mesh, initialized with GFS data for 0000 UTC 10 January 2014, reveal that MPAS overestimates precipitation in the tropics relative to the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis data. Results of 4-day forecasts using the variable-resolution mesh reveal that over the refined region of the mesh, GF performs as a precipitating shallow convective scheme, whereas over the coarse region of the mesh, GF acts as a conventional deep convective scheme. As horizontal resolution increases and subgrid-scale motions become increasingly resolved, the contribution of convective and grid-scale precipitation to the total precipitation decreases and increases, respectively. Probability density distributions of precipitation highlight a smooth transition in the partitioning between convective and grid-scale precipitation, including at gray-zone scales across the transition region between the coarsest and finest regions of the global mesh. Variable-resolution meshes spanning between hydrostatic and nonhydrostatic scales are shown to be ideal tools to evaluate the horizontal scale dependence of parameterized convective and grid-scale moist processes.

Article / Publication Data
Active/Online
YES
Volume
144
Available Metadata
Accepted On
March 16, 2016
DOI ↗
Fiscal Year
NOAA IR URL ↗
Peer Reviewed
YES
Publication Name
Monthly Weather Review
Published On
June 01, 2016
Publisher Name
American Meteorological Society
Print Volume
144
Print Number
6
Page Range
2285-2306
Issue
6
Submitted On
September 16, 2015
URL ↗

Authors

Authors who have authored or contributed to this publication.