A Simulating Study on Resolvable-Scale Microphysical Parameterization in a Mesoscale Model

The Penn State/ NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) is used to simulate the precipitation event that oc-curred during 1-2 May 1994 to the south of the Yangtze River. In five experiments the Kain-Fritsch scheme is made use of for the subgrid-scale convective precipitation, but five different resolvable-scale microphysical parameterization schemes are employed. They are the simple super-saturation removal scheme, the warm rain scheme of Hsie et al. (1984), the simple ice scheme of Dudhia (1989), the complex mixed-phase scheme developed by Reisner et al. (1993). and the GSFC microphysical scheme with graupel. Our interest is how the various resolvable-scale schemes affect the domain-averaged precipitation, the pre-cipitation distribution, the sea level pressure, the cloud water and the cloud ice.Through a series of experiments about a warm sector rainfall case, results show that although the dif-ferent resolvable-scale scheme is used, the differences of the precipitation characteristics among all five runs are not very obvious. However, the precipitation is over-predicted and the strong mesoscale low is produced by the simple super-saturation removal scheme. The warm rain scheme with the inclusion of condensation and evaporation under-predicts the precipitation and allows the cloud water to reach the 300 hPa level The scheme of the addition of graupel increases the resolvable-scale precipitation by about 20%–30%. The inclusion of supercooled liquid water in the grid-scale scheme does not affect significantly the results.