Microphysical controls on condensate distributions and the tropical energy budget in global storm-resolving models

With global storm-resolving models (SRMs) a new type of global high-resolution models is now becoming available that explicitly resolves the main drivers of the atmospheric flow of matter and energy on the kilometer scale. In these models, arguably two poorly constrained physical processes remain unresolved  - microphysics and turbulence - but are at least fundamentally linked to their controlling factors, i.e., the circulation. In this study, we use a global SRM with two different microphysical schemes and do several sensitivity runs, where we vary one parameter of the applied microphysics scheme in its range of uncertainty. We find that the two microphysics schemes have distinct signatures (e.g., in how condensate is partitioned in ice and snow) but their mean cloud cover and total condensate is rather robust. Perturbing single parameters of each scheme also affects the condensate distributions and causes several 10s W/m² variations in radiative fluxes. Changes in radiative properties of cloudy points dominate changes in the radiative balance at the top of the atmosphere. Overall, microphysical sensitivities in global SRMs are substantial and resemble inter-model differences of a multi-model ensemble.