Shepard and Hardy multiquadric interpolation methods for multicomponent aerosol-cloud parameterization

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method based on the application of interpolation techniques to the multi-component aerosol-cloud parameterization for global climate modeling. Quantifying the aerosol indirect effect still remains a difficult task, and thus developing parameterizations for general circulation models (GCMs) of the microphysics of clouds and their interactions with aerosols is a major challenge for climate modelers. Three aerosol species are considered in this paper - namely sulfate, sea salt, and biomass smoke - and a detailed microphysical chemical parcel model is used to obtain a dataset of points relating the cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) to the three aerosol input masses. The resulting variation of CDNC with the aerosol mass has some nonlinear features that require a complex but efficient parameterization to be easily incorporated into GCMs. In bicomponent systems, simple interpolation techniques may be sufficient to relate the CDNC to the aerosol mass, but with increasing components, simple methods fail. The parameterization technique proposed in this study employs either the modified Shepard interpolation method or the Hardy multiquadrics interpolation method, and the numerical results obtained show that both methods provide realistic results for a wide range of aerosol mass loadings. This is the first application of these two interpolation techniques to aerosol-cloud interaction studies. © 2009 American Meteorological Society.