The Radiative‐Convective Equilibrium Model Intercomparison Project (RCEMIP) is an intercomparison of multiple types of numerical models configured in radiative‐convective equilibrium (RCE). RCE is an idealization of the tropical atmosphere that has long been used to study basic questions in climate science. Here, we employ RCE to investigate the role that clouds and convective activity play in determining cloud feedbacks, climate sensitivity, the state of convective aggregation, and the equilibrium climate. RCEMIP is unique among intercomparisons in its inclusion of a wide range of model types, including atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs), single column models (SCMs), cloud‐resolving models (CRMs), large eddy simulations (LES), and global cloud‐resolving models (GCRMs). The first results are presented from the RCEMIP ensemble of more than 30 models. While there are large differences across the RCEMIP ensemble in the representation of mean profiles of temperature, humidity, and cloudiness, in a majority of models anvil clouds rise, warm, and decrease in area coverage in response to an increase in sea surface temperature (SST). Nearly all models exhibit self‐aggregation in large domains and agree that self‐aggregation acts to dry and warm the troposphere, reduce high cloudiness, and increase cooling to space. The degree of self‐aggregation exhibits no clear tendency with warming. There is a wide range of climate sensitivities, but models with parameterized convection tend to have lower climate sensitivities than models with explicit convection. In models with parameterized convection, aggregated simulations have lower climate sensitivities than unaggregated simulations.

Analysis of the microphysical structure of deep convective clouds using in situ measurements during the Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment (CAIPEEX) over the Indian peninsular region is presented. It is shown that droplet size distributions (DSDs) in highly polluted premonsoon clouds are substantially narrower than DSDs in less polluted monsoon clouds. High values of DSD dispersion (0.3–0.6) and its vertical variation in the transient and monsoon clouds are related largely to the existence of small cloud droplets with diameters less than 10 μm, which were found at nearly all levels. This finding indicates the existence of a continuous generation of the smallest droplets at different heights. In some cases this generation of small droplets leads to the formation of bimodal and even multimodal DSDs. The formation of bimodal DSDs is especially pronounced in monsoon clouds. Observational evidence is presented to suggest that in-cloud nucleation at elevated layers is a fundamental mechanism for producing multimodal drop size distribution in monsoon clouds as well as in most deep convective clouds. These findings indicate that inclusion of continued nucleation away from the cloud base into numerical models should be considered to predict microphysics and precipitation of clouds in monsoons and other cloud-related phenomena.

Surface raindrop size distributions over a rain shadow region during the Indian summer monsoon are clustered using the k‐means algorithm. The rainfall for five dominant clusters has distinct vertical features in polarimetric radar and micro rain radar. The deep convection with low cloud bases and high liquid water is associated with sharply increasing radar reflectivity at low levels and the largest drops at the surface. The large drops, originated by ice processes, break while falling below the melting layer, causing a peak in raindrops smaller than 0.5 mm diameter near the cloud base, where the falling raindrops rapidly grow by collision‐coalescence without breaking. The number concentration in the stratiform rain is relatively moderate; hence a gradual raindrop growth, and uniform vertical reflectivity. However, few raindrops in stratiform rain grow to a larger diameter than in convective rain, for the same rain rate due to the absence of collisional breakup.

A comprehensive analysis of particle size distributions measured in situ with airborne instrumentation during the Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment (CAIPEEX) is presented. In situ airborne observations in the developing stage of continental convective clouds during premonsoon (PRE), transition, and monsoon (MON) period at temperatures from 25 to −22°C are used in the study. The PRE clouds have narrow drop size and particle size distributions compared to monsoon clouds and showed less development of size spectra with decrease in temperature. Overall, the PRE cases had much lower values of particle number concentrations and ice water content compared to MON cases, indicating large differences in the ice initiation and growth processes between these cloud regimes. This study provided compelling evidence that in addition to dynamics, aerosol and moisture are important for modulating ice microphysical processes in PRE and MON clouds through impacts on cloud drop size distribution. Significant differences are observed in the relationship of the slope and intercept parameters of the fitted particle size distributions (PSDs) with temperature in PRE and MON clouds. The intercept values are higher in MON clouds than PRE for exponential distribution which can be attributed to higher cloud particle number concentrations and ice water content in MON clouds. The PRE clouds tend to have larger values of dispersion of gamma size distributions than MON clouds, signifying narrower spectra. The relationships between PSDs parameters are presented and compared with previous observations.

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model coupled with a spectral bin microphysics (SBM) scheme is used to investigate aerosol effects on cloud microphysics and precipitation over the Indian peninsular region. The main emphasis of the study is in comparing simulated cloud microphysical structure with in situ aircraft observations from the Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement Experiment (CAIPEEX). Aerosol–cloud interaction over the rain-shadow region is investigated with observed and simulated size distribution spectra of cloud droplets and ice particles in monsoon clouds. It is shown that size distributions as well as other microphysical characteristics obtained from simulations such as liquid water content, cloud droplet effective radius, cloud droplet number concentration, and thermodynamic parameters are in good agreement with the observations. It is seen that in clouds with high cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations, snow and graupel size distribution spectra were broader compared to clouds with low concentrations of CCN, mainly because of enhanced riming in the presence of a large number of droplets with a diameter of 10–30 μm. The Hallett–Mossop ice multiplication process is illustrated to have an impact on snow and graupel mass. The changes in CCN concentrations have a strong effect on cloud properties over the domain, amounts of cloud water, and the glaciation of the clouds, but the effects on surface precipitation are small when averaged over a large area. Overall enhancement of cold-phase cloud processes in the high-CCN case contributed to slight enhancement (5%) in domain-averaged surface precipitation.