Evaluating turbulent and microphysical schemes in ICON for deep convection over the Alps: a case study of vertical transport and model–observation comparison

Alladi, Hemanth Kumar; Quimbayo-Duarte, Julian; Bugliaro, Luca; Mayer, Johanna; Singh, Shweta; Schmidli, Juerg

doi:10.5194/acp-26-8617-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-8617-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

The tropopause region in a changing atmosphere (TPChange)...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-8617-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 12

Research article

|

22 Jun 2026

Research article |

| 22 Jun 2026

Evaluating turbulent and microphysical schemes in ICON for deep convection over the Alps: a case study of vertical transport and model–observation comparison

Hemanth Kumar Alladi, Julian Quimbayo-Duarte, Luca Bugliaro, Johanna Mayer, Shweta Singh, and Juerg Schmidli

Data sets

ICON Deep Convection over the Alps: Dataset for Vertical Transport and Model–Observation Analy- sis of Turbulence and Microphysics Parameterizations H. K. Alladi et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20386087

Short summary

Thunderstorms can transport moisture into the lower stratosphere, affecting climate. Over mountains, models fail to represent them due to underrepresentation of turbulent mixing and cloud microphysics. This study evaluates the operational and new turbulence schemes, with single and double moment microphysics, in the ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic (ICON) model against observations. The operational turbulence scheme enhances mixing, while double moment produces taller storms with more ice transport.