References

The Cryosphere

1994-0424

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/tc-8-125-2014

Updated cloud physics in a regional atmospheric climate model improves the modelled surface energy balance of Antarctica

van Wessem

J. M.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3221-791X

¹ Reijmer

C. H.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8299-3883

¹ Lenaerts

J. T. M.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4309-4011

¹ van de Berg

W. J.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8232-2040

¹ van den Broeke

M. R.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4662-7565

¹ van Meijgaard

Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, the Netherlands

22 01 2014

8 1 125 135

2014

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/8/125/2014/tc-8-125-2014.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/8/125/2014/tc-8-125-2014.pdf

In this study the effects of changes in the physics package of the regional atmospheric climate model RACMO2 on the modelled surface energy balance, near-surface temperature and wind speed of Antarctica are presented. The physics package update primarily consists of an improved turbulent and radiative flux scheme and a revised cloud scheme that includes a parameterisation for ice cloud super-saturation. The ice cloud super-saturation has led to more moisture being transported onto the continent, resulting in more and optically thicker clouds and more downward long-wave radiation. Overall, the updated model better represents the surface energy balance, based on a comparison with >750 months of data from nine automatic weather stations located in East Antarctica. Especially the representation of the turbulent sensible heat flux and net long-wave radiative flux has improved with a decrease in biases of up to 40%. As a result, modelled surface temperatures have increased and the bias, when compared to 10 m snow temperatures from 64 ice-core observations, has decreased from −2.3 K to −1.3 K. The weaker surface temperature inversion consequently improves the representation of the sensible heat flux, whereas wind speed biases remain unchanged. However, significant model biases remain, partly because RACMO2 at a resolution of 27 km is unable to resolve steep topography.

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