Identification

Title

Parameterizing total storm conduction currents in the Community Earth System Model

Abstract

Electrified clouds are known to play a major role in the Global Electric Circuit. These clouds produce upward currents which maintain the potential difference between Earth's surface and the upper atmosphere. In this study, model output from two simulations of the Community Earth System Model (CESM) are compared with conduction currents and other data derived from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, including both the Lightning Imaging Sensor and Precipitation Radar. The intention is to determine CESM's skill at representing these microphysical and dynamical properties of clouds. Then, these cloud properties are used to develop a model parameterization to compute conduction currents from electrified clouds. Specifically, we evaluate the ability of global mean convective mass flux, ice water path, and convective precipitation to represent conduction current sources. Parameterizations using these variables yield derived global mean currents that agree well with the geographical patterns of TRMM currents. In addition, comparing the diurnal variations of modeled global mean current to the observed diurnal variations of electric potential gradient, root-mean-square (RMS) errors range between 6.5% and 8.1%, but the maximum occurs 4 to 6 h early in all three variables. Output currents derived from the model variables generally match well to the currents derived from TRMM, and the total global current estimates agree well with past studies. This suggests that cloud parameters are well suited for representing the global distribution and strength of currents in a global model framework.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7j104zn

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-11-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact