Representation of Clouds and Precipitation Processes in the Community Atmosphere Model Version 3 (CAM3)

• Published in: Journal of climate Vol. 19; no. 11; pp. 2184 - 2198
• Main Authors: Boville, Byron A., Rasch, Philip J., Hack, James J., McCaa, James R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston American Meteorological Society 01-06-2006
• Subjects: Atmosphere; Atmospheric models; Cirrus clouds; Climate; Climate models; Clouds; Convection; Convection clouds; Convective precipitation; Evaporation; Evaporation rate; Freezing; Ice; Latent heat; Liquids; Parameterization; Precipitation; Relative humidity; Sedimentation rates; Tropopause; Water vapor
• ISSN: 0894-8755; 1520-0442
• DOI: 10.1175/jcli3749.1

The parameterizations of clouds and precipitation processes have been revised considerably in the Community Atmosphere Model version 3 (CAM3) compared to its predecessors, CAM2 and the Community Climate Model version 3 (CCM3). The parameterizations in CAM3 are more realistic in their representation of processes affecting cloud liquid and ice particles and represent the linkages between processes more completely. This paper describes the changes to the representation of clouds in CAM3, including the partitioning of cloud water between liquid and ice phases, the determination of particle sizes and sedimentation rates, the phase and evaporation rate of precipitation, and the calculation of the cloud fraction.
Parameterization changes between CCM3 and CAM2 introduced a significant cold bias at the tropical tropopause, resulting in a dry bias for stratospheric water vapor. Tests of the sensitivity of the tropical temperature profile and the tropical tropopause temperature to individual process changes suggested that the radiative balance at the tropopause was altered by improvements in both clouds and relative humidity below. Radiative equilibrium calculations suggested that the cold bias could be removed by improving the representation of subvisible cirrus clouds. These results motivated the complete separation of the representation of liquid and ice cloud particles and an examination of the processes that determine their sources and sinks. As a result of these changes, the tropopause cold bias has been almost eliminated in CAM3.
The total cloud condensate variable, used in CAM2, has been separated into cloud liquid and cloud ice variables in CAM3. Both sedimentation and large-scale transport of the condensate variables are now included. Snowfall is computed explicitly and the latent heat of fusion has been included for all freezing and melting processes. Both deep and shallow convection parameterizations now detrain cloud condensate directly into the stratiform clouds instead of evaporating the detrained condensate into the environment. The convective parameterizations are not easily modified to include the latent heat of fusion. Therefore, the determination of the phase of convective precipitation, and of detrained condensate, is added as a separate step. Evaporation is included for sedimenting cloud particles and for all sources of precipitation.