P77  Modelling the Southern Ocean Boundary Layer Clouds

Hande, Luke, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

The Southern Ocean is a remote area, with the overlying atmosphere being unique and relatively poorly studied by the meteorology community.  There is a growing body of evidence that suggests the clouds over the Southern Ocean are poorly understood and represented in climate models.  The focus of this study is on the structure and dynamics of the lower atmosphere over the Southern Ocean.

One of the major field campaigns to study the atmosphere over the Southern Ocean, the first Aerosol Characterisation Experiment (ACE 1), dates back to 1995.  Here, a well defined boundary layer was observed to approximately 500 – 700 m, driven principally by wind shear, above which resided a ÔBuffer LayerÕ which experienced intermittent turbulence and wind shear.

The goal of this research is to simulate the Lagrangian B experiment from ACE 1 using the WRF model.  The emphasis is on studying the evolution of the boundary layer, modelling the cloud fields, and the role wind shear plays in the dynamics of the boundary layer.  This research will evaluate the performance of the WRF model in capturing the structure of the boundary layer and cloud fields, and investigate some of the key difficulties with modelling Southern Ocean clouds.