edu.ucar.opensky::articles:26754 UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact 2025-12-24T19:20:24.969823 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata - Part 2: Extensions for Imagery and Gridded Data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7445rkc https://doi.org/10.5065/D6RX99HX https Related Service #1 Cheyenne: SGI ICE XA Cluster Simulating wintertime orographic cloud seeding over the Snowy Mountains of Australia 2023-11-01T00:00:00Z publication https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7445rkc https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-23-0012.1 Chen, Sisi author Xue, Lulin author Tessendorf, Sarah A. author Chubb, T. author Peace, A. author Ackermann, L. author Gevorgyan, A. author Huang, Y. author Siems, S. author Rasmussen, Roy M. author Kenyon, S. author Speirs, J. author UCAR/NCAR - Library publisher This study presents the first numerical simulations of seeded clouds over the Snowy Mountains of Australia. WRF-WxMod, a novel glaciogenic cloud-seeding model, was utilized to simulate the cloud response to winter orographic seeding under various meteorological conditions. Three cases during the 2018 seeding periods were selected for model evaluation, coinciding with an intensive ground-based measurement campaign. The campaign data were used for model validation and evaluation. Comparisons between simulations and observations demonstrate that the model realistically represents cloud structures, liquid water path, and precipitation. Sensitivity tests were performed to pinpoint key uncertainties in simulating natural and seeded clouds and precipitation processes. They also shed light on the complex interplay between various physical parameters/ processes and their interaction with large-scale meteorology. Our study found that in unseeded scenarios, the warm and cold biases in different initialization datasets can heavily influence the intensity and phase of natural precipitation. Secondary ice production via Hallett-Mossop processes exerts a secondary influence. On the other hand, the seeding impacts are primarily sensitive to aerosol conditions and the natural ice nucleation process. Both factors alter the supercooled liquid water availability and the precipitation phase, consequently impacting the silver iodide (AgI) nucleation rate. Furthermore, model sensitivities were inconsistent across cases, indicating that no single model configuration optimally represents all three cases. This highlights the necessity of employing an ensemble approach for a more comprehensive and accurate assessment of the seeding impact. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Winter orographic cloud seeding has been conducted for decades over the Snowy Mountains of Australia for securing water resources. However, this study is the first to perform cloud-seeding simulation for a robust, event-based seeding impact evaluation. A state-of-the-art cloud-seeding model (WRF-WxMod) was used to simulate the cloud seeding and quantified its impact on the region. The Southern Hemisphere, due to low aerosol emissions and highly pristine cloud conditions, has distinctly different cloud microphysical characteristics than the Northern Hemisphere, where WRF-WxMod has been successfully applied in a few regions over the United States. The results showed that WRFWxMod could accurately capture the clouds and precipitation in both the natural and seeded conditions. UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact PDF Text theme Resource Type 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z publication Copyright 2023 American Meteorological Society (AMS). None eng geoscientificInformation