[1] An objective assessment of the impact of a new cloud scheme, called Microphysics of Clouds with Relaxed Arakawa-Schubert Scheme (McRAS) (together with its radiation modules), on the finite volume general circulation model (fvGCM) was made with a set of ensemble forecasts that invoke performance evaluation over both weather and climate timescales. The performance of McRAS (and its radiation ...

To evaluate and improve the treatment of clouds and radiation by the climate models of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), simulations by the NCAR Community Climate Model version 3 (CCM3), as well as the recently released Community Atmosphere Model version 2 (CAM2), are examined. The Rasch and Kristjánsson prognostic cloud condensate scheme, which is now the standard scheme for...

Data provided under the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program of the U.S. Department of Energy have been analyzed with the goal of evaluating a radiation parameterization scheme currently used in both cloud resolving models and general circulation models (GCMs). These evaluations are also used to develop refinements to the parameterization scheme, and the performance of the climate mo...

Clouds are the largest modulators of the solar radiative flux reaching the Earth’s surface. The amount and type of cloud cover prevailing at a given time and location largely determines the amount and type of solar radiation received at the Earth’s surface. This cloud radiative forcing is different for the different solar spectral bands. In this work, we analysed the influence of cloud radiativ...

Current weather and climate models neglect 3-D radiative transfer through cloud sides, which can change the cloud radiative effect (CRE) significantly. This two-part paper describes the development of the SPeedy Algorithm for Radiative TrAnsfer through CloUd Sides (SPARTACUS) to capture these effects efficiently in a two-stream radiation scheme for use in global models. The present paper concer...

A new stratiform cloud scheme including a twomoment bulk microphysics module, a cloud cover parameterization allowing ice supersaturation, and an ice nucleation parameterization has been implemented into the recently developed GFDL AM3 general circulation model (GCM) as part of an effort to treat aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions more realistically. Unlike the original scheme, the new scheme...

Estimating the impact of radiation transport through cloud sides on the global energy budget is hampered by the lack of a fast radiation scheme suitable for use in global atmospheric models that can represent these effects in both the shortwave and longwave. This two-part paper describes the development of such a scheme, which we refer to as the Speedy Algorithm for Radiative Transfer through C...

Mixed-phase clouds dominate low-level Arctic clouds in cold seasons and have a significant impact on the surface energy budget. However, the treatment of mixed-phase clouds in most current climate models is crude because the detailed microphysical processes involved in mixed-phase clouds are not completely understood, primarily owe to the paucity of cloud observations in the past. Improving mix...