Tracking Aerosol Convection Interaction Experiment (TRACER) Model Intercomparison Project (MIP)

Background and Motivation

The DOE ARM Tracking Aerosol Convection Interaction Experiment (TRACER) campaign took place in the Houston, TX region from 01 October 2021 through 30 September 2022, with an IOP from June-September 2022, which collected a comprehensive dataset focused on the evolution of convective clouds and their environment (including aerosol, cloud, thermodynamics, and lightning). A unique component of TRACER is that a large number of individual, isolated convective cells were tracked and measured with high spatial and temporal resolution. These comprehensive, unique observational datasets can help evaluate model and parameterization performance, identify model and parameterization deficiencies, and gain new insights to improve models. This provides the motivation for conducting an additional community model intercomparison project (MIP) based on the previous Aerosol Cloud Precipitation Climate (ACPC) Deep Convective Cloud (DCC) MIP (ACPC-MIP; van den Heever et al. 2017; Marinescu et al. 2021; Saleeby et al. 2025; van den Heever et al. 2025), which is referred to as the TRACER-MIP.

Modeling Groups

| Name / group | Institution | Email | Model / version | Microphysics | Note (any information you want to include here about aerosol and cloud microphysics treatment) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Stephen Saleeby,
Sue van den Heever | CSU | stephen.saleeby@colostate.edu,
sue.vandenheever@colostate.edu | RAMS | RAMS | Prognostic aerosol treatment, predicted supersaturation | | Jiwen Fan,
Soumya Samanta | ANL | fanj@anl.gov,
ssamanta@anl.gov | WRF v4.0 | FSBM1 | Prognostic aerosol treatment, predicted supersaturation | | Christian Barthlott,
Corinna Hoose | KIT | corinna.hoose@kit.edu,
christian.barthlott@kit.edu | ICON 2.6.6 (possibly ICON-ART) | Seifert & Beheng double-moment | Aerosols constant in space/time, saturation adjustment | | John Mejia | DRI | john.mejia@dri.edu | WRF v4.5.1 | Morrison Aerosol-Aware; ice and water paths | Prognostic aerosol treatment, predicted supersaturation | | Jorge Gonzalez,
Jean Carlos Pena | SUNY-Albany | jgonzalez-cruz@albany.edu,
jpena4@albany.edu | | | | | Hamish Gordon | CMU | gordon@cmu.edu | | | | | Toshi Matsui,
Taka Iguchi | NASA-Goddard | toshihisa.matsui-1@nasa.gov,
takamichi.iguchi@nasa.gov | NU-WRF | NSSL Microphysics | | | Johannes Quaas, Alice Henkes | Leipzig Univ. | johannes.quaas@uni-leipzig.de,
alice.henkes@uni-leipzig.de | ICON-MPIM | Seifert & Beheng double-moment | | | Philip Stier | UK-Oxford | philip.stier@physics.ox.ac.uk | | | | | Benoit Vie | Meteo-France | benoit.vie@meteo.fr | Meso-NH | | | | Yang Tian | UCAR-CGGD | ytian@ucar.edu | | | | | Yunyan Zhang,
Hsi-Yen Ma,
Jishi Zhang,
Peter Andrew Bogenschutz | LLNL | zhang25@llnl.gov,
ma21@llnl.gov,
zhang73@llnl.gov,
bogenschutz1@llnl.gov | DOE-SCREAM | | | | Paul Field,
Annica Ekman | Univ. Leeds,
Stockholm Univ. | p.field@leeds.ac.uk,
annica@misu.su.se | | | |

Observational Groups

| Name / group | Institution | Email | Note (any information you want to include here about your contribution) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Gijs de Boer | Univ. Colorado, Boulder | gijs.deboer@colorado.edu | We have limited UAS data for the first case (17 June), including 18 CopterSonde and 1 RAAVEN flights. However, I’d be happy to support broader (beyond UAS) data analysis needs, as able. | | Hassan Dashtian,
Michael H Young | Univ. Texas, Austin | michael.young@beg.utexas.edu,
hassan.dashtian@beg.utexas.edu | Collected soil moisture data for TRACER | | Katia Lamer | BNL | klamer@bnl.gov | Spatially distributed atmospheric boundary layer dataset (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-024-03477-9) |

Authors:

Intercomparison Development

Jiwen Fan,#, Stephen Saleeby, Michael Jensen #, Susan van den Heever, Pavlos Kollias, Tamanna Subba, Chongai Kuang, Bo Chen, Anita D. Rapp, Sarah D. Brooks, Maria Zawadowicz, Soumya Samanta, Mariko Oue

*TRACER-MIP co-leads

Aerosol Cloud Precipitation Climate (ACPC) Deep Cloud co-leads

Infrastructure Development

Max Grover