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The exponential increase in precipitation with increasing column saturation fraction (CSF) is used to investigate the role of moisture in convective coupling. This simple empirical relationship between precipitation and CSF is shown to capture nearly all MJO-related variability in TRMM precipitation, ~80% of equatorial Rossby wave–related variability, and ~75% of east Pacific easterly wave–related variability. In contrast, this empirical relationship only captures roughly half of TRMM precipitation variability associated with Kelvin waves, African easterly waves, and mixed Rossby–gravity waves, suggesting coupling mechanisms other than moisture are playing leading roles in these phenomena. These latter phenomena have strong adiabatically forced vertical motions that could reduce static stability and convective inhibition while simultaneously moistening, creating a more favorable convective environment. Cross-spectra of precipitation and column-integrated dry static energy show enhanced coherence and an out-of-phase relationship in the Kelvin wave, mixed Rossby–gravity wave, and eastward inertio-gravity wave bands, supporting this narrative. The cooperative modulation of precipitation by moisture and temperature anomalies is shown to shorten the convective adjustment time scale (i.e., time scale by which moisture and precipitation are relaxed toward their “background” state) of these phenomena. Speeding the removal of moisture anomalies relative to that of temperature anomalies may allow the lattermore »to assume a more important role in driving moist static energy fluctuations, helping promote the gravity wave character of these phenomena.

Realistically representing the multiscale interactions between moisture and tropical convection remains an ongoing challenge for weather prediction and climate models. In this study, we revisit the relationship between precipitation and column saturation fraction (CSF) by investigating their tendencies in CSF–precipitation space using satellite and radar observations, as well as reanalysis. A well-known, roughly exponential increase in precipitation occurs as CSF increases above a “critical point,” which acts as an attractor in CSF–precipitation space. Each movement away from and subsequent return toward the attractor results in a small net change of the coupled system, causing it to evolve in a cyclical fashion around the attractor. This cyclical evolution is characterized by shallow and convective precipitation progressively moistening the environment and strengthening convection, stratiform precipitation progressively weakening convection, and drying in the nonprecipitating and lightly precipitation regime. This behavior is evident across a range of spatiotemporal scales, suggesting that shortcomings in model representation of the joint evolution of convection and large-scale moisture will negatively impact a broad range of spatiotemporal scales. Novel process-level diagnostics indicate that several models, all implementing versions of the Zhang–McFarlane deep convective parameterization, exhibit unrealistic coupling between column moisture and convection.