On large-scale circulations in convecting atmospheres

Water in the atmosphere

“…The process is particularly efficient in the tropical troposphere. 4 Because water vapor pressure decreases as temperature decreases, as shown in figure 2, and temperature decreases with altitude, roughly following γ m , at some altitude water molecules become so scarce that their net radiative contribution is negligible. That altitude defines the upper limit of the radiatively driven convection layer and the height of the troposphere.…”

Roles of convective heating and boundary-layer moisture asymmetry in slowing down the convectively coupled Kelvin waves

“…1, one kind of conceptual model for CCKW could obtain the phase speed close to the observation by letting the convective heating reduce the atmospheric static stability (Emanuel et al 1994). In such a model, the resulted speed is primarily attributed to the effective static stability parameter used.…”

“…An alternative theory to explain unstable equatorial waves is the wind-induced surface heat exchange (WISHE) (Emanuel 1987;Yano and Emanuel 1991). The reduction of phase speed of CCKW was attributed to the interaction between multiple vertical modes (Lau and Peng 1987;Chang and Lim 1988;Matthews and Lander 1999), the reduction of atmospheric static stability (termed as "effective static stability" as well) (Emanuel et al 1994) or the eddy momentum, heating, and moisture transport (Wang and Liu 2011;Liu and Wang 2012a;Liu and Wang 2013). Mapes (2000) proposed a "stratiform instability" mechanism by considering both the first baroclinic mode and the second baroclinic mode vertical structures.…”

The decadal variability of the tropical Indian Ocean SST–the South Asian High relation: CMIP5 model study

“…The tropospheric temperature, defined as mean temperature between 100 and 850 hPa, acts as a medium in the influence of the Indian Ocean SST on the SAH. In tropical atmosphere, the temperature approximately follows the moist adiabatic profile, determined by equivalent potential temperature in the planetary boundary layer (Emanuel et al 1994(Emanuel et al , 1997. As the TIO basin warms in the summer following El Niño, the surface equivalent potential temperature increases, the whole troposphere column warms, forcing Kelvin wave response to the east of the Indian Ocean, like a wedge penetrating into the equatorial Pacific ); the tropospheric warming above the TIO basin leads to elevated height over South Asia and thus the enhanced SAH .…”