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1. Dependence of Superintensity of Tropical Cyclones on SST in Axisymmetric Numerical Simulations

   https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-20-0141.1  

   Li, Yuanlong ; Wang, Yuqing ; Lin, Yanluan ; Fei, Rong ( December 2020 , Monthly Weather Review)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract This study revisits the superintensity of tropical cyclones (TCs), which is defined as the excess maximum surface wind speed normalized by the corresponding theoretical maximum potential intensity (MPI), based on ensemble axisymmetric numerical simulations, with the focus on the dependence of superintensity on the prescribed sea surface temperature (SST) and the initial environmental atmospheric sounding. Results show a robust decrease of superintensity with increasing SST regardless of being in experiments with an SST-independent initial atmospheric sounding or in those with the SST-dependent initial atmospheric soundings as in nature sorted for the western North Pacific and the North Atlantic. It is found that the increase in either convective activity (and thus diabatic heating) in the TC outer region or theoretical MPI or both with increasing SST could reduce the superintensity. For a given SST-independent initial atmospheric sounding, the strength of convective activity in the TC outer region increases rapidly with increasing SST due to the rapidly increasing air–sea thermodynamic disequilibrium (and thus potential convective instability) with increasing SST. As a result, the decrease of superintensity with increasing SST in the SST-independent sounding experiments is dominated by the increasing convective activity in the TC outer region and is much larger than that in the SST-dependent sounding experiments, and the TC intensity becomes sub-MPI at relatively high SSTs in the former. Due to the marginal increasing tendency of convective activity in the TC outer region, the decrease of superintensity in the latter is dominated by the increase in theoretical MPI with increasing SST. 

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2. A Weak Temperature Gradient Framework to Quantify the Causes of Potential Intensity Variability in the Tropics

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-21-0139.1  

   Rousseau-Rizzi, Raphaël ; Emanuel, Kerry ( November 2021 , Journal of Climate)

   Abstract Potential intensity (PI) has been shown to have a linear sensitivity to sea surface temperature (SST) of about 8 m s −1 K −1 , which is close to the sensitivity of PI in simulations subject to a weak temperature gradient (WTG) approximation. This suggests that most of the PI variance is associated with local rather than global SST variations. We verify that PI perturbations are approximately linear in SST, with slopes of 1.8 ± 0.2 m s −1 K −1 in radiative–convective equilibrium (RCE) and 9.1 ± 0.9 m s −1 K −1 in WTG. To do so, we simulate the sensitivity of both RCE and WTG states in a single-column model (SCM) perturbed by changing in turn CO 2 concentration, aerosol concentrations, prescribed SST, and surface winds speeds. While PI is much more sensitive to SST in WTG than in RCE simulations, the SST itself is much less sensitive to radiative forcing in WTG than in RCE because of the absence of strong atmospheric response. Using these results, we develop a linear model, based on SST and midlevel saturation MSE perturbations, to partition SST and PI perturbations between local components occurring under a WTG constraint and global components that are representative of an RCE state. This model explains up to 95% of the variability of PI in reanalysis. The SCM-derived linear model coefficients are statistically indistinguishable from coefficients from a linear fit of reanalysis PI to SST and midlevel saturation MSE in most ocean basins. Our model shows that North Atlantic PI variations are explained almost entirely by local forcings in recent decades. 

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3. Using Radiative Convective Equilibrium to Explore Clouds and Climate in the Community Atmosphere Model

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2021MS002539  

   Reed, Kevin A. ; Silvers, Levi G. ; Wing, Allison A. ; Hu, I‐Kuan ; Medeiros, Brian ( December 2021 , Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems)

   Characteristics of, and fundamental differences between, the radiative‐convective equilibrium (RCE) climate states following the Radiative‐Convective Equilibrium Model Intercomparison Project (RCEMIP) protocols in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) and version 6 (CAM6) are presented. This paper explores the characteristics of clouds, moisture, precipitation and circulation in the RCE state, as well as the tropical response to surface warming, in CAM5 and CAM6 with different parameterizations. Overall, CAM5 simulates higher precipitation rates that result in larger global average precipitation, despite lower outgoing longwave radiation compared to CAM6. Differences in the structure of clouds, particularly the amount and vertical location of cloud liquid, exist between the CAM versions and can, in part, be related to distinct representations of shallow convection and boundary layer processes. Both CAM5 and CAM6 simulate similar peaks in cloud fraction, relative humidity, and cloud ice, linked to the usage of a similar deep convection parameterization. These anvil clouds rise and decrease in extent in response to surface warming. More generally, extreme precipitation, aggregation of convection, and climate sensitivity increase with warming in both CAM5 and CAM6. This analysis provides a benchmark for future studies that explore clouds, convection, and climate in CAM with the RCEMIP protocols now available in the Community Earth System Model. These results are discussed within the context of realistic climate simulations using CAM5 and CAM6, highlighting the usefulness of a hierarchical modeling approach to understanding model and parameterization sensitivities to inform model development efforts.

    

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4. Idealized Simulations of the Tropical Climate and Variability in the Single Column Atmosphere Model (SCAM): Radiative‐Convective Equilibrium

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2021MS002826  

   Hu, I‐Kuan ; Mapes, Brian E. ; Tulich, Stefan N. ; Neale, Richard B. ; Gettelman, Andrew ; Reed, Kevin A. ( February 2022 , Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems)

   To explore the interactions among column processes in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM), the single‐column version of CAM (SCAM) is integrated for 1000 days in radiative‐convective equilibrium (RCE) with tropical values of boundary conditions, spanning a parameter or configuration space of model physics versions (v5 vs. v6), vertical resolution (standard and 60 levels), sea surface temperature (SST), and some interpretation‐driven experiments. The simulated time‐mean climate is reasonable, near observations and RCE of a cyclic cloud‐resolving model. Updraft detrainment in the deep convection scheme produces distinctive grid‐scale structures in humidity and cloud, which also interact with radiative transfer processes. These grid artifacts average out in multi‐column RCE results reported elsewhere, illustrating the nuts‐and‐bolts interpretability that SCAM adds to the hierarchy of model configurations. Multi‐day oscillations of precipitation arise from descent of warm convection‐capping layers starting near the tropopause, eventually reset by a burst of convective deepening. Experiments reveal how these oscillations depend critically on an internal parameter that controls the number of neutral buoyancy levels allowed for determining cloud top and computing dilute convective available potential energy in the deep convection scheme, and merely modified a little by disabling cloud‐base radiation (heating of cloud base). This strong dependence of transient behavior in 1D on this parameter will be tested in the second part of this work, in which SCAM is coupled to a parameterized dynamics of two‐dimensional, linearized gravity wave, and in the 3D simulations in future study.

    

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5. Clouds and Convective Self‐Aggregation in a Multimodel Ensemble of Radiative‐Convective Equilibrium Simulations

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2020MS002138  

   Wing, Allison A. ; Stauffer, Catherine L. ; Becker, Tobias ; Reed, Kevin A. ; Ahn, Min‐Seop ; Arnold, Nathan P. ; Bony, Sandrine ; Branson, Mark ; Bryan, George H. ; Chaboureau, Jean‐Pierre ; et al ( September 2020 , Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems)

   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.

    

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