Środowiskowe Seminarium Fizyki Atmosfery

Wyszogrodzki et al.~(Atmos. Chem. Phys. 2013) discussed large-eddy simulations of a field of shallow convective clouds applying warm-rain bin microphysics, and contrasted results obtained applying the traditional gravitational collision kernel and the novel kernel that includes enhancement due to the small-scale turbulence. The significant enhancement of the surface precipitation rate wasattributed to the combination of cloud microphysical and dynamical effects. Current study expands that analysis and puts model results in the context of past studies concerning effects of cloud and precipitation processes on macroscopic cloud characteristics. Despite a significant precipitation enhancement when effects of small-scale turbulence are included, the macroscopic impacts are relatively minor. We document a clear feedback between cloud-scale processes and the mean environmental profiles that increase with the amount of precipitation. We pose a question whether simulated effects of cloud turbulence on rain formation can be corroborated by remote sensing observations, for instance, from space. Although a clear signal is extracted from model results, we argue that the answer is negative due to combination of such factors as temporal variability of shallow convective cloud field, sampling and spatial resolution of the satellite data, and overall uncertainty and accuracy of remote sensing retrievals.