Sensitivity analysis of an aerosol-aware microphysics scheme in Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)  during case studies of fog in Namibia

Weston, Michael John; Piketh, Stuart John; Burnet, Frédéric; Broccardo, Stephen; Denjean, Cyrielle; Bourrianne, Thierry; Formenti, Paola

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10221-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 15

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10221-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

New observations and related modelling studies of the aerosol–cloud–climate...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10221-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 15

Research article

|

10 Aug 2022

Research article |

| 10 Aug 2022

Sensitivity analysis of an aerosol-aware microphysics scheme in Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) during case studies of fog in Namibia

Michael John Weston, Stuart John Piketh, Frédéric Burnet, Stephen Broccardo, Cyrielle Denjean, Thierry Bourrianne, and Paola Formenti

Data sets

AERCLO-sA PEGASUS CCN Cyrielle Denjean and Thierry Bourrianne https://doi.org/10.6096/AEROCLO.1813

AEROCLO-sA PEGASUS Micrometeorology Paola Formenti and Stuart Piketh https://doi.org/10.6096/AEROCLO.1808

AEROCLO-sA PEGASUS radiosondes Paola Formenti and Stuart Piketh https://doi.org/10.6096/AEROCLO.1806

Short summary

An aerosol-aware microphysics scheme is evaluated for fog cases in Namibia. AEROCLO-sA campaign observations are used to access and parameterise the model. The model cloud condensation nuclei activation is lower than the observations. The scheme is designed for clouds with updrafts, while fog typically forms in stable conditions. A pseudo updraft speed assigned to the lowest model levels helps achieve more realistic cloud droplet number concentration and size distribution in the model.