Submitted as: development and technical paper18 Feb 2021
Submitted as: development and technical paper | 18 Feb 2021
Review status: this preprint is currently under review for the journal GMD.
On numerical broadening of particle size spectra:
a condensational growth study using PyMPDATA 1.0
Michael Olesik1,Sylwester Arabas1,Jakub Banaśkiewicz1,Piotr Bartman1,Manuel Baumgartner2,3,and Simon Unterstrasser4Michael Olesik et al.Michael Olesik1,Sylwester Arabas1,Jakub Banaśkiewicz1,Piotr Bartman1,Manuel Baumgartner2,3,and Simon Unterstrasser4
Received: 01 Dec 2020 – Accepted for review: 15 Feb 2021 – Discussion started: 18 Feb 2021
Abstract. The work discusses the diffusional growth in particulate systems such as atmospheric clouds. It focuses on the Eulerian modeling approach in which the evolution of the probability density function describing the particle size spectrum is carried out using a fixed-bin discretization. The numerical diffusion problem inherent to the employment of the fixed-bin discretization is scrutinized. The work focuses on the applications of MPDATA family of numerical schemes. Several MPDATA variants are explored including: infinite-gauge, non-oscillatory, third-order-terms and recursive antidiffusive correction (double pass donor cell, DPDC) options. Methodology for handling coordinate transformations associated with both particle size distribution variable choice and numerical grid layout are expounded. The study uses PyMPDATA – a new open-source Python implementation of MPDATA. Analysis of the performance of the scheme for different discretization parameters and different settings of the algorithm is performed using an analytically solvable test case pertinent to condensational growth of cloud droplets. The analysis covers spatial and temporal convergence, computational cost, conservativeness and quantification of the numerical broadening of the particle size spectrum. Presented results demonstrate that, for the problem considered, even a tenfold decrease of the spurious numerical spectral broadening can be obtained by a proper choice of the MPDATA variant (maintaining the same spatial and temporal resolution).