Indirect effects of latent heat of condensation on the simulation of the 2021 catastrophic Henan rainfall event in central China

Abstract Cloud‐related latent heat is critical to the development and maintenance of atmospheric circulation. However, it is unclear how sensitive the key large‐scale weather systems of an extreme rainfall event could be to the variation in cloud‐related latent heat. In a companion study, by investigating the indirect effects of different microphysics schemes, we hypothesized that the latent heat of condensation (CT) would play a role in the ability to simulate the extreme rainfall event that took place in Henan Province, central China, on July 19–21, 2021. To examine the proposed hypothesis, the impacts of varying the CT and the collection of cloud water by rainwater (ACW) in the Thompson, WDM6, and Morrison microphysics schemes on the simulation of the southerly flow and its indirect effect on this extreme rainfall case were studied using the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting (ARW‐WRF) model. It was found that directly changing the CT and ACW had significant effects on the southerly flow and precipitation. An increase in CT generally led to a reduced temperature gradient, a smaller pressure gradient, a stronger southerly flow, and a precipitation surge of 32%–50%. Similar outcomes resulted from increasing ACW in the WDM6 scheme, which effectively diminished the cloud mixing ratio, generated higher CT, and consequently intensified the southerly flow and precipitation by 31%. This study confirmed that the accurate simulation of microphysical processes, along with latent heating, is desirable for more realistically reproducing the key weather systems in the simulation of extreme rainfall.