A method for estimating the effects of radiative transfer process on precipitation

Radiative transfer process affects precipitation through complicated interactions and numerous processes between radiation, cloud microphysics, dynamical processes and precipitation processes. In this paper, a method is proposed to quantitatively estimate the effects of radiative transfer process on precipitation by defining equivalent radiative cooling/heating, which is combined by radiative cooling/heating and the vertical velocity variation ascribed to radiative transfer process. This algorithm is verified by modelling a long-period rainfall case in June 2002. The results show that radiative transfer process enhances diurnal precipitation variation by increasing the nocturnal rainfall and suppressing the daytime’s as well as the total rainfall. The analysis of the domain-averaged and centres rainfall validates the applicability of the equivalent radiative mechanism, in which the vertical integrated saturation vapour depth temporal trend ascribed to the equivalent radiative cooling/heating is employed to estimate the effect of radiative transfer process on precipitation. The results show that the method is a good approach for quantitatively estimating the effects of radiative transfer process on precipitation