Parameterization of Convective Clouds, Mesoscale Convective Systems, and Convective-Generated Clouds

This presentation is a summary of research progress supported under the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) project entitled "Parameterization of Convective Clouds, Mesoscale Convective Systems, and Con'o'ective-Generated Clouds." The approach used in this research is to perform explicit simulations of convective clouds and mesoscale convective systems for well-documented observed cases. The simulated data are used to help us in fabricating, calibrating, and testing parameterization schemes of these cloud systems. The approach is analogous to the large-eddysimulation (LES) approach that has been quite successfully used in developing parameterizations of turbulent transport in the convective boundary layer. The work builds on research by Weissbluth (1991) who developed parameterizations of deep convective clouds updrafts and downdrafts.