Microphysics-Radiation Coupling Documentation

[btrabing]

Is there any documentation on what microphysics and radiation schemes are coupled in WRF? For instance I did some testing and found that in WRV3.7.1, CAM shortwave radiation and Thompson microphysics do not seem to interact (distributions of heating rates are not close to reality). Overall the physics suite was helpful and the physics survey was great to see what individual schemes were being used, but neither show which schemes work well together overall.

It would also be helpful to know if such documentation does not exist thus far.

 

[kwerner]

Hi,
To my knowledge, there is not an existing document with this particular information. There may be some studies that have been done to show these relations, but I'm not exactly sure where to find them, if so. I do know that both Thompson (option 8) and WSM6 (option 6) microphysics work well with RRTMG radiation, as those have been thoroughly tested for our 2 physics suites. In general, those schemes that come from the same group (e.g., CAM) tend to work well together, as they were likely developed to be used together, so I would assume CAM MP and CAM radiation would work well together.