A large eddy simulation intercomparison study of shallow cumulus convection

Abstract

This paper reports an intercomparison study on undisturbed trade wind cumulus convection under steady-state conditions as observed during the Barbados Oceanographic and Meteorological Experiment (BOMEX) with 10 large eddy simulation (LES) models. A main objective of this study is to obtain a quantitative assessment of the quality of the turbulent dynamics for this type of boundary layer clouds as produced by the different LES codes. A 6-h simulation shows excellent model-to-model agreement of the observed vertical thermodynamical structure, reasonable agreement of variances and turbulent fluxes, and good agreement of quantities conditionally sampled within the model clouds, such as cloud cover, liquid water, and cloud updraft strength. In the second part of this paper the LES dataset is used to evaluate simple models that are used in parameterizations of current general circulation models (GCMs). Finally, the relation of this work to subsequent LES studies of more complicated regimes is discussed, and guidance is given for the design of future observational studies of shallow cumulus boundary layers.