ALBERT

Description: No Abstract available.

Description: In this study, TRMM-observed precipitation in the tropics is decomposed according to the horizontal area of radar precipitation features, with special emphasis on large systems (rain area 〉 104 km2) that contribute roughly half of tropical rainfall. Statistical associations of rain-weighted radar precipitation feature (RPF) size distributions with atmospheric variables on the 1.5° grid of ERA-Interim data are explored. In one-predictor distributions, the association with total precipitable water vapor (TPWV) is the strongest, while relative humidity at low and midlevels and low-level wind shear are also positively related to large-RPF rain fraction. Standard CAPE and CIN variables computed from grid-mean thermodynamic profiles are only weakly related to the size of rain systems. Joint distributions over two variables are also reported. The relative importance of predictors varies over different regions. The eastern Pacific is distinctive for having large rain systems in environments with a moist boundary layer but a dry midtroposphere, with strong shallow wind shear and small CAPE. In contrast, the large-storm environment over the western Pacific is found to be moister in the whole troposphere, with relatively weaker wind shear and larger CAPE. Over tropical land, the Sahel and central Africa stand out as having a great fractional rainfall contributed by large RPFs. Their associated environment is characterized by lower TPWV but stronger shallow wind shear and larger CIN and CAPE, in comparison to the equatorial Amazon basin and the Maritime Continent. Based on these associations, statistical reconstructions of the geographical distribution of large-RPF rain fraction from grid-mean atmospheric predictors are attempted.

Description: Bimodally distributed column water vapor (CWV) indicates a well-defined moist regime in the Tropics, above a margin value near 48 kg m−2 in current climate (about 80% of column saturation). Maps reveal this margin as a meandering, sinuous synoptic contour bounding broad plateaus of the moist regime. Within these plateaus, convective storms of distinctly smaller convective and mesoscales occur sporadically. Satellite data composites across the poleward most margin reveal its sharpness, despite the crude averaging: precipitation doubles within 100 km, marked by both enhancement and deepening of cloudiness. Transported patches and filaments of the moist regime cause consequential precipitation events within and beyond the Tropics. Distinguishing synoptic flows that cross the margin from flows that move the margin is made possible by a novel satellite-based Lagrangian CWV tendency estimate. Climate models do not reliably reproduce the observed bimodal distribution, so studying the moist mode's maintenance processes and the margin-zone air mass transformations, guided by the Lagrangian tendency product, might importantly constrain model moist process treatments. ©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Description: Column water vapor (CWV) is studied using data from the Dynamics of the Madden–Julian Oscillation (DYNAMO) field experiment. A distinctive moist mode in tropical CWV probability distributions motivates the work. The Lagrangian CWV tendency (LCT) leaves together the compensating tendencies from phase change and vertical advection, quantities that cannot be measured accurately by themselves, to emphasize their small residual, which governs evolution. The slope of LCT versus CWV suggests that the combined effects of phase changes and vertical advection act as a robust positive feedback on CWV variations, while evaporation adds a broadscale positive tendency. Analyzed diabatic heating profiles become deeper and stronger as CWV increases. Stratiform heating is found to accompany Lagrangian drying at high CWV, but its association with deep convection makes the mean LCT positive at high CWV. Lower-tropospheric wind convergence is found in high-CWV air masses, acting to shrink their area in time. When ECMWF heating profile indices and S-Pol and TRMM radar data are binned jointly by CWV and LCT, bottom-heavy heating associated with shallow and congestus convection is found in columns transitioning through Lagrangian moistening into the humid, high-rain-rate mode of the CWV distribution near 50–55 mm, while nonraining columns and columns with widespread stratiform precipitation are preferentially associated with Lagrangian drying. Interpolated sounding-array data produce substantial errors in LCT budgets, because horizontal advection is inaccurate without satellite input to constrain horizontal gradients.

Description: The budget of column-integrated moist static energy (MSE) is examined in wavenumber–frequency transforms of longitude–time sections over the tropical belt. Cross-spectra with satellite-derived precipitation (TRMM-3B42) are used to emphasize precipitation-coherent signals in reanalysis [ERA-Interim (ERAI)] estimates of each term in the budget equation. Results reveal different budget balances in convectively coupled equatorial waves (CCEWs) as well as in the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) and tropical depression (TD)-type disturbances. The real component (expressing amplification or damping of amplitude) for horizontal advection is modest for most wave types but substantially damps the MJO. Its imaginary component is hugely positive (it acts to advance phase) in TD-type disturbances and is positive for MJO and equatorial Rossby (ERn1) wave disturbances (almost negligible for the other CCEWs). The real component of vertical advection is negatively correlated (damping effect) with precipitation with a magnitude of approximately 10% of total latent heat release for all disturbances except for TD-type disturbance. This effect is overestimated by a factor of 2 or more if advection is computed using the time–zonal mean MSE, suggesting that nonlinear correlations between ascent and humidity would be positive (amplification effect). ERAI-estimated radiative heating has a positive real part, reinforcing precipitation-correlated MSE excursions. The magnitude is up to 14% of latent heating for the MJO and much less for other waves. ERAI-estimated surface flux has a small effect but acts to amplify MJO and ERn1 waves. The imaginary component of budget residuals is large and systematically positive, suggesting that the reanalysis model’s physical MSE sources would not act to propagate the precipitation-associated MSE anomalies properly.

Description: This study evaluates the tropical intraseasonal variability, especially the fidelity of Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) simulations, in 14 coupled general circulation models (GCMs) participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Eight years of daily precipitation from each model’s twentieth-century climate simulation are analyzed and compared with daily satellite-retrieved precipitation. Space–time spectral analysis is used to obtain the variance and phase speed of dominant convectively coupled equatorial waves, including the MJO, Kelvin, equatorial Rossby (ER), mixed Rossby–gravity (MRG), and eastward inertio–gravity (EIG) and westward inertio–gravity (WIG) waves. The variance and propagation of the MJO, defined as the eastward wavenumbers 1–6, 30–70-day mode, are examined in detail. The results show that current state-of-the-art GCMs still have significant problems and display a wide range of skill in simulating the tropical intraseasonal variability. The total intraseasonal (2–128 day) variance of precipitation is too weak in most of the models. About half of the models have signals of convectively coupled equatorial waves, with Kelvin and MRG–EIG waves especially prominent. However, the variances are generally too weak for all wave modes except the EIG wave, and the phase speeds are generally too fast, being scaled to excessively deep equivalent depths. An interesting result is that this scaling is consistent within a given model across modes, in that both the symmetric and antisymmetric modes scale similarly to a certain equivalent depth. Excessively deep equivalent depths suggest that these models may not have a large enough reduction in their “effective static stability” by diabatic heating. The MJO variance approaches the observed value in only 2 of the 14 models, but is less than half of the observed value in the other 12 models. The ratio between the eastward MJO variance and the variance of its westward counterpart is too small in most of the models, which is consistent with the lack of highly coherent eastward propagation of the MJO in many models. Moreover, the MJO variance in 13 of the 14 models does not come from a pronounced spectral peak, but usually comes from part of an overreddened spectrum, which in turn is associated with too strong persistence of equatorial precipitation. The two models that arguably do best at simulating the MJO are the only ones having convective closures/triggers linked in some way to moisture convergence.

Description: The Matsuno–Gill model has been widely used to study the tropical large-scale circulations and atmosphere–ocean interactions. However, a common critique of this model is that it requires a strong equivalent linear mechanical damping to get realistic wind response and it is unclear what could provide such a strong damping above the boundary layer. This study evaluates the sources and strength of equivalent linear mechanical damping in the Walker circulation by calculating the zonal momentum budget using 15 yr (1979–93) of daily global reanalysis data. Two different reanalyses [NCEP–NCAR and 15-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-15)] give qualitatively similar results for all major terms, including the budget residual, whose structure is consistent with its interpretation as eddy momentum flux convergence by convective momentum transport (CMT). The Walker circulation is characterized by two distinct regions: a deep convection region over the Indo-Pacific warm pool and a shallow convection region over the eastern Pacific cold tongue. These two regions are separated by a strong upper-tropospheric ridge and a strong lower-tropospheric trough in the central Pacific. The resultant pressure gradient forces on both sides require strong (approximately 5–10 days) damping to balance them because Coriolis force near the equator is too small to provide the balance. In the deep convection region, the damping is provided by CMT and advection together in both the upper and lower troposphere. In the shallow convection region, on the other hand, the damping is provided mainly by advection in the upper troposphere and by CMT in the lower troposphere. In other words, the upper-level tropical easterly jet and the low-level trade wind are both braked by CMT. These results support the use of strong damping in the Matsuno–Gill-type models but suggest that the damping rate is spatially inhomogeneous and the CMT-related damping increases with the strength of convection. Implications for GCM’s simulation of tropical mean climate are discussed.