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Abstract

It is important to understand the effects of warming of the earth by trace gases and polluting the environment by acid rain. For these and other reasons we need to be able to simulate atmospheric chemistry in the global troposphere. Perhaps the biggest meteorological uncertainty in such modeling is determining vertical transport of trace species by clouds. There has been considerable work on the parameterization of vertical transport of heat and moisture by clouds in meteorological models (see reviews by Anthes et al., 1986 and Frank, 1983); such meteorological parameterizations, however, do not imply a unique tracer transport, and additional assumptions are required. Cloud transfer in global three-dimensional (3-D) tracer models has sometimes been partly resolved but usually is parameterized using a variety of methods, including eddy diffusivities (K), transfer matrices, and convective mass fluxes.