Impacts of coupling between convection and microphysics parameterizations on the simulations of precipitation and cloud properties over Asia

In climate models, convection and microphysics parameterization schemes (i.e. CPS and MPS) are two components most related to the precipitation and cloud simulations. This study investigates the individual and interaction impacts of CPS and MPS on the precipitation and cloud simulations over Asia based on nine regional model experiments using combinations of three CPSs of the Kain-Fritsch (KF), Zhang-McFarlane (ZM), and Grell 3D ensemble (G3), and three MPSs of the WRF Single-Moment 6-class (WSM), Morrison 2-Moment (MOR), and Thompson (TH). We find none of the experiments is superior to the others in terms of both precipitation mean magnitude and spatial pattern. Compared to the KF CPS, the ZM and G3 CPSs respectively produce less and more convective precipitation; however, both of them simulate more stratiform precipitation because the convective drying tendency and detrained ice affect stratiform processes in different ways. In general, the CPS impacts on precipitation and clouds are larger when associating with the MOR MPS than with the other two MPSs as the former simulates more clouds and thus exhibits larger response of the MPS-induced drying tendency. Switching the CPS from KF to G3 causes stronger and weaker MPS-induced drying tendencies above 5 km when associating with the MOR MPS and with the other two MPSs, respectively, as ice formation is more sensitive to ice detrainments in the former but moisture condition in the later. We also explore the modulation effects of the CPS on the MPS impacts that are highly related to the CPS's behavior in simulating ice detrainments. Our results suggest when changing the MPS (CPS), the CPS (MPS) impacts on the precipitation and cloud simulations could be strengthened, weakened, or even opposite, which helps better understand the coupling effects of the CPS and MPS on the precipitation and cloud formations.