Recovery Processes and Factors Limiting Cloud-Top Height following the Arrival of a Dry Intrusion Observed during TOGA COARE

Redelsperger, Jean‐Luc; Parsons, David B.; Guichard, Françoise

doi:10.1175/1520-0469(2002)059<2438:rpaflc>2.0.co;2

Cited by 133 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Subsequently, frequent dry intrusion occurs over central-eastern Pacific Ocean, as described by Waugh and Polvani (2000). Trade winds encounter this dry air when they pass over this region and, as a result, convective activity over the warm pool is somehow restricted by several days scale dry intrusion events (Parsons et al 2000;Redelsperger et al 2002).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They concluded that this bimodality resulted from the frequent occurrence of extremely dry air intrusions from higher latitudes into the basically moist tropical environment. Since the warm pool had been considered to be perpetually in the moist conditions with the knowledge before TOGA COARE, the dry intrusion event has attracted many researchers in studying the mechanism, and its impact on moisture variability (e.g., Parsons et al 1994;Numaguti et al 1995;Yoneyama and Fujitani 1995;Sheu and Liu 1995;Mapes and Zuidema 1996;DeMott and Rutledge 1998;Yoneyama and Parsons 1999;Parsons et al 2000;Redelsperger et al 2002). Yoneyama and Parsons (1999) showed that these lateral intrusions were associated with mid-latitudes breaking Rossby waves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Moisture Variability over the Tropical Western Pacific Ocean

Yoneyama

2003

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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In this paper, we study the characteristics of moisture variability over the tropical western Pacific warm pool region using sounding data obtained through the use of research vessels. Data used here were collected in both boreal summer and winter seasons over a nine-year period from 1993 through 2001. Sounding data are categorized into five zonal wind vertical shear modes, and then examined for common and singular features of moisture variability.The results show frequent occurrences of high relative humidity centered around 945 hPa, and 560 hPa, for any wind shear conditions, as previously found in the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere/Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) studies. We also found another small peak at 845 hPa in low-level easterly conditions. The degree of these features is modulated by wind shear mode differences. An interesting feature is that the variation of total precipitable water is well represented by the synoptic scale mid-tropospheric moisture variation. However, a close relation between the total moisture budget and the moisture variation in the boundary layer is also obtained for a time scale of less than a few days (especially the diurnal cycle).We investigated extremely dry air conditions as one factor modulating mid-tropospheric moisture. Backward air parcel trajectories show that there are two major routes for the intrusion of dry air over the warm pool. In the first, the air parcel could be traced back to higher latitudes and the upper troposphere. For this type, anticyclonic equatorward flow associated with developing mid-latitude baroclinic waves, such as Rossby wave breaking, is responsible for injecting subtropical dry air into the Tropics-as proposed by Yoneyama and Parsons for TOGA COARE dry events. In the second type, the air parcel could be traced back to the upper troposphere, but within lower latitudes in the central-eastern Pacific. For this case, the air parcel originates from the trade winds that passed over the region where dry air was injected by the anticyclonic equatorward flow associated with the baroclinic wave development in the subtropical region.The relationship between dry air conditions and large-scale features is also discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moisture Variability over the Tropical Western Pacific Ocean

Yoneyama

2003

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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“…Motivated by their study and observations that midtropospheric humidity modulates tropical convection (Redelsperger et al, 2002), Bechtold et al (2008) revised the ECMWF convection scheme, including an entrainment formulation that explicitly accounts for RH dependency. It was shown that the revised convection scheme also greatly improves midlatitude and tropical variability in the ECMWF model on various scales including the representation of wavenumbers 1 and 2 Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) (Madden and Julian, 1971).…”

Section: Rh-dependent Entrainmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrainment and detrainment in cumulus convection: an overview

Rooy

Bechtold

Fröhlich

et al. 2012

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

294

256

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Entrainment and detrainment processes have been recognised for a long time as key processes for cumulus convection and have recently witnessed a regrowth of interest mainly due to the capability of large-eddy simulations (LES) to diagnose these processes in more detail. This article has a twofold purpose. Firstly, it provides a historical overview of the past research on these mixing processes, and secondly, it highlights more recent important developments. These include both fundamental process studies using LES aiming to improve our understanding of the mixing process, but also more practical studies targeted toward an improved parametrised representation of entrainment and detrainment in large-scale models. A highlight of the fundamental studies resolves a long-lasting controversy by showing that lateral entrainment is the dominant mixing mechanism in comparison with the cloud-top entrainment in shallow cumulus convection. The more practical studies provide a wide variety of new parametrisations with sometimes conflicting approaches to the way in which the effect of the free tropospheric humidity on the lateral mixing is taken into account. An important new insight that will be highlighted is that, despite the focus in the literature on entrainment, it appears that it is rather the detrainment process that determines the vertical structure of the convection in general and the mass flux especially. Finally, in order to speed up progress and stimulate convergence in future parametrisations, stronger and more systematic use of LES is advocated.

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“…For example the observational analysis by Redelsperger et al [2002] highlighted a strong dependence of tropical convection on tropospheric humidity. Convective parameterizations were then shown by Derbyshire et al [2004] not to reproduce this behavior as modeled by CRMs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiative convective equilibrium as a framework for studying the interaction between convection and its large‐scale environment

Silvers

Stevens

Mauritsen

et al. 2016

J Adv Model Earth Syst

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An uncertain representation of convective clouds has emerged as one of the key barriers to our understanding of climate sensitivity. The large gap in resolved spatial scales between General Circulation Models (GCMs) and high resolution models has made a systematic study of convective clouds across model configurations difficult. It is shown here that the simulated atmosphere of a GCM in Radiative Convective Equilibrium (RCE) is sufficiently similar across a range of domain sizes to justify the use of RCE to study both a GCM and a high resolution model on the same domain with the goal of improved constraints on the parameterized clouds. Simulations of RCE with parameterized convection have been analyzed on domains with areas spanning more than two orders of magnitude ( ), all having the same grid spacing of . The simulated climates on different domains are qualitatively similar in their degree of convective organization, the precipitation rates, and the vertical structure of the clouds and water vapor, with the similarity increasing as the domain size increases. Sea surface temperature perturbation experiments are used to estimate the climate feedback parameter for the differently configured experiments, and the cloud radiative effect is computed to examine the role which clouds play in the response. Despite the similar climate states between the domains the feedback parameter varies by more than a factor of two; the hydrological sensitivity parameter is better behaved, varying by a factor of 1.4. The sensitivity of the climate feedback parameter to domain size is related foremost to a nonsystematic response of low‐level clouds as well as an increasingly negative longwave feedback on larger domains.

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Recovery Processes and Factors Limiting Cloud-Top Height following the Arrival of a Dry Intrusion Observed during TOGA COARE

Cited by 133 publications

References 44 publications

Moisture Variability over the Tropical Western Pacific Ocean

Moisture Variability over the Tropical Western Pacific Ocean

Entrainment and detrainment in cumulus convection: an overview

Radiative convective equilibrium as a framework for studying the interaction between convection and its large‐scale environment

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