Modifications to the CLASS Boundary Layer Model for Improved Interaction Between the Mixed Layer and Clouds

Abstract

Abstract The impact of clouds on the mixed layer (ML) is critical for understanding the evolution of boundary layer humidity and temperature over the course of a day. We found that accounting for moistening of the cloud layer (CL) by humidity originating in the ML dramatically alters the interaction between the ML and the CL in a one‐dimensional cloud‐topped boundary layer model: Chemistry Land‐surface Atmosphere Soil Slab (CLASS) (Vilà‐Guerau de Arellano et al., 2015, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316117422). We demonstrate that enabling CLASS to moisten the lower CL improves the prediction of humidity (and the flux of humidity) both above and below the ML top (h). To account for this moistening, we propose a length scale, L, above h, over which mixing of mass fluxes into the environment occurs. The mass fluxes are assumed to decrease linearly from h to a height L meters above h, analogous to a convective plume detraining into the environment at a height‐independent rate. Accounting for this process is accomplished by modifying the differential equations representing the growth of the jumps (sharp changes in humidity and temperature) at h. From analysis of a large number of diurnal Large Eddy simulations (covering approximately 11,000 different early morning initial conditions), we provide a regression model for parameterizing L from early morning weather variables. With the regression‐based estimate of L, the modified model (CLASS‐L) accounts for moistening the lower CL, and as a result, yields improved humidity dynamics, humidity flux profiles, and cloud growth under a broad range of conditions.

Keywords

• cloud‐topped boundary layer models
• large eddy simulations
• mixed layer models