Investigation of ice cloud modeling capabilities for the irregularly shaped Voronoi ice scattering models in climate simulations

Both weather-climate models and ice cloud remote sensing applications need to obtain effective ice crystal scattering (ICS) properties and the parameterization scheme. An irregularly shaped Voronoi ICS model has been suggested to be effective in remote sensing applications for several satellite programs, e.g., Himawari-8, GCOM-C (Global Change Observation Mission-Climate) and EarthCARE (Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer). As continuation work of Letu et al. (2016), an ice cloud optical property parameterization scheme (Voronoi scheme) of the Voronoi ICS model is employed in the Community Integrated Earth System Model (CIESM) to simulate the optical and radiative properties of ice clouds. We utilized the single-scattering properties (extinction efficiency, single-scattering albedo and asymmetry factor) of the Voronoi model from the ultraviolet to the infrared, combined with 14 408 particle size distributions obtained from aircraft measurements to complete the Voronoi scheme. The Voronoi scheme and existing schemes (Fu, Mitchell, Yi and Baum-yang05) are applied to the CIESM to simulate 10-year global cloud radiative effects during 2001-2010. Simulated globally averaged cloud radiative forcings at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) for Voronoi and the other four existing schemes are compared to the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF) product. The results show that the differences in shortwave and longwave globally averaged cloud radiative forcing at the TOA between the Voronoi scheme simulations and EBAF products are 1.1 % and 1.4 %, which are lower than those of the other four schemes. Particularly for regions (from 30 degrees S to 30 degrees N) where ice clouds occur frequently, the Voronoi scheme provides the closest match with EBAF products compared with the other four existing schemes. The results in this study fully demonstrated the effectiveness of the Voronoi ICS model in the simulation of the radiative properties of ice clouds in the climate model.

Automated summary

This study simulated the optical and radiative properties of ice clouds using a parameterization scheme of the Voronoi ICS model in a climate model. The results showed that the Voronoi scheme had smaller differences in global average cloud radiative forcing compared to other existing schemes, and it provided the closest match with EBAF products in regions where ice clouds occur frequently.