Optimisation of simulation particle number in a Lagrangian ice microphysical model

This paper presents various techniques to speed up the Lagrangian ice microphysics code EULAG-LCM. The amount of CPU time (and also memory and storage data) depends heavily on the number of simulation ice particles (SIPs) used to represent the bulk of real ice crystals. It was found that the various microphysical processes require different numbers of SIPs to reach statistical convergence (in a sense that a further increase of the SIP number does not systematically change the physical outcome of a cirrus simulation). Whereas deposition/sublimation and sedimentation require only a moderate number of SIPs, the (nonlinear) ice nucleation process is only well represented, when a large number of SIPs is generated. We introduced a new stochastic nucleation implementation which mimics the stochastic nature of nucleation and greatly reduces numerical sensitivities. Furthermore several strategies (SIP merging and splitting) are presented which flexibly adjust and reduce the number of SIPs. These efficiency measures reduce the computational costs of present cirrus studies and allow extending the temporal and spatial scales of upcoming studies

The Contrail Mitigation Potential of Aircraft Formation Flight Derived from High-Resolution Simulations

Formation flight is one potential measure to increase the efficiency of aviation. Flying in the upwash region of an aircraft’s wake vortex field is aerodynamically advantageous. It saves fuel and concomitantly reduces the carbon foot print. However, CO2 emissions are only one contribution to the aviation climate impact among several others (contrails, emission of H2O and NOx). In this study, we employ an established large eddy simulation model with a fully coupled particle-based ice microphysics code and simulate the evolution of contrails that were produced behind formations of two aircraft. For a large set of atmospheric scenarios, these contrails are compared to contrails behind single aircraft. In general, contrails grow and spread by the uptake of atmospheric water vapour. When contrails are produced in close proximity (as in the formation scenario), they compete for the available water vapour and mutually inhibit their growth. The simulations demonstrate that the contrail ice mass and total extinction behind a two-aircraft formation are substantially smaller than for a corresponding case with two separate aircraft and contrails. Hence, this first study suggests that establishing formation flight may strongly reduce the contrail climate effect

Box model trajectory studies of contrail formation using a particle-based cloud microphysics scheme

We investigate the microphysics of contrail formation behind commercial aircraft by means of the particle-based LCM (Lagrangian Cloud Module) box model. We extend the original LCM to cover the basic pathway of contrail formation on soot particles being activated into liquid droplets that soon after freeze into ice crystals. In our particle-based microphysical approach, simulation particles are used to represent different particle types (soot, droplets, ice crystals) and properties (mass/radius, number). The box model is applied in two frameworks. In the classical framework, we prescribe the dilution along one average trajectory in a single box model run. In the second framework, we perform a large ensemble of box model runs using 25 000 different trajectories inside an expanding exhaust jet as simulated by the LES (large-eddy simulation) model FLUDILES. In the ensemble runs, we see a strong radial dependence of the temperature and relative humidity evolution. Droplet formation on soot particles happens first near the plume edge and a few tenths of a second later in the plume centre. Averaging over the ensemble runs, the number of formed droplets and ice crystals increases more smoothly over time than for the single box model run with the average dilution. Consistent with previous studies, contrail ice crystal number varies strongly with atmospheric parameters like temperature and relative humidity near the contrail formation threshold. Close to this threshold, the apparent ice number emission index (product of freezing fraction and soot number emission index) strongly depends on the geometric-mean dry core radius and the hygroscopicity parameter of soot particles. The freezing fraction of soot particles slightly decreases with increasing soot particle number, particularly for higher soot number emissions. This weakens the increase of the apparent ice number emission index with rising soot number emission index. Comparison with box model results of a recent contrail formation study by Lewellen (2020) (using similar microphysics) shows a later onset of our contrail formation due to a weaker prescribed plume dilution. If we use the same dilution data, our evolution and Lewellen's evolution in contrail ice nucleation show an excellent agreement cross-verifying both microphysics implementations. This means that differences in contrail properties mainly result from different representations of the plume mixing and not from the microphysical modelling. Using an ensemble mean framework instead of a single trajectory does not necessarily lead to an improved scientific outcome. Contrail ice crystal numbers tend to be overestimated since the interaction between the different trajectories is not considered. The presented aerosol and microphysics scheme describing contrail formation is of intermediate complexity and thus suited to be incorporated in an LES model for 3D contrail formation studies explicitly simulating the jet expansion. Our box model results will help interpret the upcoming, more complex 3D results

Contrails and their impact on shortwave radiation and photovoltaic power production – a regional model study

A high-resolution regional-scale numerical model was extended by a parameterization that allows for both the generation and the life cycle of contrails and contrail cirrus to be calculated. The life cycle of contrails and contrail cirrus is described by a two-moment cloud microphysical scheme that was extended by a separate contrail ice class for a better representation of the high concentration of small ice crystals that occur in contrails. The basic input data set contains the spatially and temporally highly resolved flight trajectories over Central Europe derived from real-time data. The parameterization provides aircraft-dependent source terms for contrail ice mass and number. A case study was performed to investigate the influence of contrails and contrail cirrus on the shortwave radiative fluxes at the earth’s surface. Accounting for contrails produced by aircraft enabled the model to simulate high clouds that were otherwise missing on this day. The effect of these extra clouds was to reduce the incoming shortwave radiation at the surface as well as the production of photovoltaic power by up to 10 %

Properties of young contrails - parametrisation based on large-eddy simulations

Contrail–cirrus is probably the largest climate forcing from aviation. The evolution of contrail–cirrus and its radiative impact depends not only on a multitude of atmospheric parameters, but also on the geometric and microphysical properties of the young contrails evolving into contrail–cirrus. The early evolution of contrails (t  <  5 min) is dominated by an interplay of ice microphysics and wake vortex dynamics. Young contrails may undergo a fast vertical expansion due to a descent of the wake vortices and may lose a substantial fraction of their ice crystals due to adiabatic heating. The geometric depth H and total ice crystal number N of young contrails are highly variable and depend on many environmental and aircraft parameters. Both properties, H and N, affect the later properties of the evolving contrail–cirrus, as they control the extent of shear-induced spreading and sedimentation losses. In this study, we provide parametrisations of H and N after 5 min taking into account the effects of temperature, relative humidity, thermal stratification and aircraft type (mass, wing span, fuel burn). The parametrisations rely on a large data set of recent large-eddy simulations of young contrails. They are suited to be incorporated in larger-scale models in order to refine the present-day contrail initialisations by considering the processes that strongly affect the contrail evolution during the vortex phase

Study of contrail microphysics in the vortex phase with a Lagrangian particle tracking model

Crystal sublimation/loss is a dominant feature of the contrail evolution during the vortex phase and has a substantial impact on the later contrail-to-cirrus transition. Previous studies showed that the fraction of crystals surviving the vortex phase depends primarily on relative humidity, temperature and the aircraft type. An existing model for contrail vortex phase simulations (with a 2-moment bulk microphysics scheme) was upgraded with a newly developed state-of-the-art microphysics module (LCM) which uses Lagrangian particle tracking. This allows for explicit process-oriented modelling of the ice crystal size distribution in contrast to the bulk approach. We show that it is of great importance to employ an advanced microphysics scheme to determine the crystal loss during the vortex phase. The LCM-model shows even larger sensitivities to the above mentioned key parameters than previously estimated with the bulk model. The impact of the initial crystal number is studied and for the first time also the initial width of the crystal size distribution. Both are shown to be relevant. This corroborates the need for a realistic representation of microphysical processes and knowledge of the ice phase characteristics