The impact of coupled 3D shortwave radiative transfer on surface radiation and cumulus clouds over land

Tijhuis, Mirjam; van Stratum, Bart J. H.; van Heerwaarden, Chiel C.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10567-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 18

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10567-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10567-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 18

Research article

|

23 Sep 2024

Research article |

| 23 Sep 2024

The impact of coupled 3D shortwave radiative transfer on surface radiation and cumulus clouds over land

Mirjam Tijhuis, Bart J. H. van Stratum, and Chiel C. van Heerwaarden

Data sets

Clouds – cloud cover retrieved from infrared measurements at 10 minute intervals at CESAR observatory KNMI Data Services https://dataplatform.knmi.nl/dataset/cesar-nubiscope-cldcov-la1-t10-v1-0

Meteo profiles – validated and gapfilled tower profiles of wind, dew point, temperature and visibility at 10 minute interval at Cabauw KNMI Data Services https://dataplatform.knmi.nl/dataset/cesar-tower-meteo-lc1-t10-v1-0

High resolution solar irradiance variability climatology dataset part 1: direct, diffuse, and global irradiance W. Knap and W. B. Mol https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7093164

High resolution solar irradiance variability climatology dataset part 2: classifications, supplementary data, and statistics W. B. Mol et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7092058

CAMS global reanalysis (EAC4) A. Inness et al. https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cams-global-reanalysis-eac4?tab=overview

CAMS global greenhous gas reanalysis (EGG4) A. Inness et al. https://ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/cams-global-ghg-reanalysis-egg4?tab=overview

Model code and software

Code used for publication about coupled 3D radiative transfer Mirjam Tijhuis https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11234716

MicroHH 1.0: a computational fluid dynamics code for direct numerical simulation and large-eddy simulation of atmospheric boundary layer flows (https://github.com/microhh/microhh/releases/tag/2.0.0_RC1) C. C. van Heerwaarden et al. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-3145-2017

The Benefits and Challenges of Downscaling a Global Reanalysis With Doubly-Periodic Large-Eddy Simulations (https://github.com/LS2D/LS2D and https://pypi.org/project/ls2d/) B. J. H. van Stratum et al. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023MS003750

Short summary

Radiative transfer in the atmosphere is a 3D processes, which is often modelled in 1D for computational efficiency. We studied the differences between using 1D and 3D radiative transfer. With 3D radiation, larger clouds that contain more liquid water develop. However, they cover roughly the same part of the sky, and the average total radiation at the surface is nearly unchanged. The increase in cloud size might be important for weather models, as it can impact the formation of rain, for example.