Predicted Particle Properties (P3) Microphysics Scheme Coupled With WRF‐Chem Model: Evaluation With Convective and Stratiform Cases

Predicted particle properties (P3) microphysics scheme was coupled with the weather research and forecasting (WRF)‐Chem model in this study. Cases of convective and stratiform mixed‐phase clouds were used to explore the differences and applicability of the simulation results of different types of clouds when different P3 configurations were coupled with WRF and WRF‐Chem models. For convective mixed‐phase clouds, configurations coupled with the WRF‐Chem model greatly improved the simulations of cloud properties and precipitation, which simulated more accurate magnitudes and extreme values of precipitation rate, areas of convective clouds, and more centralized distributions of heavy rainfall and high reflectivity (>45 dBZ) than WRF did compared with observations. Different configurations in WRF significantly overestimated the magnitudes and extreme values of hourly precipitation and produced dispersed rainfall distribution. Analysis showed that compared with WRF‐Chem, higher precipitation rates at the ground surface in WRF simulations were due to the overestimated mixing ratios of ice particles and stronger cold rain production processes of melting ice to raindrops. For stratiform mixed‐phase clouds, the configurations of one‐ and two‐ice categories in both WRF‐Chem and WRF models simulated the close ice macro‐ and micro‐physics properties to observations. However, little difference was observed in the ice simulations before and after the same configuration coupled with the WRF‐Chem model, which is caused by the close simulated air temperature and ice nucleation and deposition in different models. Plain Language Summary The pollution gases and aerosols produced by human activities are increasing with the development of industrialization and urbanization. Clouds have been considered as one of the main sources of uncertainty in the climate response to anthropogenic forcing. In numerical simulation, the potential benefits of increasing aerosol complexity and full coupling with meteorology in high‐resolution systems have been advocated. This study coupled the chemistry modules in weather research and forecasting (WRF)‐Chem model with predicted particle properties (P3) microphysics scheme, and showed that the coupled model performed better in the simulations of cloud properties and precipitation of convective clouds for better simulations of ice‐particles. The research provides more modeling approach to study the aerosol‐cloud‐precipitation interaction. Key Point