Christopher E. Holloway

Moisture Vertical Structure, Column Water Vapor, and Tropical Deep Convection

Abstract The vertical structure of the relationship between water vapor and precipitation is analyzed in 5 yr of radiosonde and precipitation gauge data from the Nauru Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site. The first vertical principal component of specific humidity is very highly correlated with column water vapor (CWV) and has a maximum of both total and fractional variance captured in the lower free troposphere (around 800 hPa). Moisture profiles conditionally averaged on precipitation show a strong association between rainfall and moisture variability in the free troposphere and little boundary layer variability. A sharp pickup in precipitation occurs near a critical value of CWV, confirming satellite-based studies. A lag–lead analysis suggests it is unlikely that the increase in water vapor is just a result of the falling precipitation. To investigate mechanisms for the CWV–precipitation relationship, entraining plume buoyancy is examined in sonde data and simplified cases. For several differe...

Rethinking convective quasi-equilibrium: observational constraints for stochastic convective schemes in climate models

Convective quasi-equilibrium (QE) has for several decades stood as a key postulate for parametrization of the impacts of moist convection at small scales upon the large-scale flow. Departures from QE have motivated stochastic convective parametrization, which in its early stages may be viewed as a sensitivity study. Introducing plausible stochastic terms to modify the existing convective parametrizations can have substantial impact, but, as for so many aspects of convective parametrization, the results are sensitive to details of the assumed processes. We present observational results aimed at helping to constrain convection schemes, with implications for each of conventional, stochastic or ‘superparametrization’ schemes. The original vision of QE due to Arakawa fares well as a leading approximation, but with a number of updates. Some, like the imperfect connection between the boundary layer and the free troposphere, and the importance of free-tropospheric moisture to buoyancy, are quantitatively important but lie within the framework of ensemble-average convection slaved to the large scale. Observations of critical phenomena associated with a continuous phase transition for precipitation as a function of water vapour and temperature suggest a more substantial revision. While the systems attraction to the critical point is predicted by QE, several fundamental properties of the transition, including high precipitation variance in the critical region, need to be added to the theory. Long-range correlations imply that this variance does not reduce quickly under spatial averaging; scaling associated with this spatial averaging has potential implications for superparametrization. Long tails of the distribution of water vapour create relatively frequent excursions above criticality with associated strong precipitation events.

The Convective cold top and quasi-equilibrium

To investigate dominant vertical structures of observed temperature perturbations, and to test the temperature implications of the convective quasi-equilibrium hypothesis, the relationship of the tropical temperature profile to the average free-tropospheric temperature is examined in Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) satellite data, radiosonde observations, and National Centers for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP–NCAR) reanalysis. The spatial scales analyzed extend from the entire Tropics down to a single reanalysis grid point or radiosonde station, with monthly to daily time scales. There is very high vertical coherence of free-tropospheric temperature perturbations. There is also fairly good agreement throughout the free troposphere between observations and a theoretical quasi-equilibrium perturbation profile calculated from a distribution of moist adiabats. The boundary layer is fairly independent from the free troposphere, especially for smaller scales. A third vertical feature of the temperature perturbation profile is here termed the “convective cold top”—a robust negative correlation between temperature perturbations of the vertically averaged free troposphere and those of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The convective cold top is found for observations and reanalysis at many temporal and spatial scales. Given this prevalence, the literature is reviewed for previous examples of what is likely a single phenomenon. One simple explanation is proposed: hydrostatic pressure gradients from tropospheric warming extend above the heating, forcing ascent and adiabatic cooling. The negative temperature anomalies thus created are necessary for anomalous pressure gradients to diminish with height.

Temporal Relations of Column Water Vapor and Tropical Precipitation

Abstract Empirical studies using satellite data and radiosondes have shown that precipitation increases with column water vapor (CWV) in the tropics, and that this increase is much steeper above some critical CWV value. Here, eight years of 1-min-resolution microwave radiometer and optical gauge data at Nauru Island are analyzed to better understand the relationships among CWV, column liquid water (CLW), and precipitation at small time scales. CWV is found to have large autocorrelation times compared with CLW and precipitation. Before precipitation events, CWV increases on both a synoptic-scale time period and a subsequent shorter time period consistent with mesoscale convective activity; the latter period is associated with the highest CWV levels. Probabilities of precipitation increase greatly with CWV. Given initial high CWV, this increased probability of precipitation persists at least 10–12 h. Even in periods of high CWV, however, probabilities of initial precipitation in a 5-min period remain low en...

The Effects of Explicit versus Parameterized Convection on the MJO in a Large-Domain High-Resolution Tropical Case Study. Part I: Characterization of Large-Scale Organization and Propagation*

AbstractHigh-resolution simulations over a large tropical domain (~20°S–20°N, 42°E–180°) using both explicit and parameterized convection are analyzed and compared to observations during a 10-day case study of an active Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) event. The parameterized convection model simulations at both 40- and 12-km grid spacing have a very weak MJO signal and little eastward propagation. A 4-km explicit convection simulation using Smagorinsky subgrid mixing in the vertical and horizontal dimensions exhibits the best MJO strength and propagation speed. Explicit convection simulations at 12 km also perform much better than the 12-km parameterized convection run, suggesting that the convection scheme, rather than horizontal resolution, is key for these MJO simulations. Interestingly, a 4-km explicit convection simulation using the conventional boundary layer scheme for vertical subgrid mixing (but still using Smagorinsky horizontal mixing) completely loses the large-scale MJO organization, showing...

Universality of rain event size distributions

We compare rain event size distributions derived from measurements in climatically different regions, which we find to be well approximated by power laws of similar exponents over broad ranges. Differences can be seen in the large-scale cutoffs of the distributions. Event duration distributions suggest that the scale-free aspects are related to the absence of characteristic scales in the meteorological mesoscale.

The sensitivity of convective aggregation to diabatic processes in idealized radiative‐convective equilibrium simulations

Idealized explicit convection simulations of the Met Office Unified Model exhibit spontaneous self-aggregation in radiative-convective equilibrium, as seen in other models in previous studies. This self-aggregation is linked to feedbacks between radiation, surface fluxes, and convection, and the organization is intimately related to the evolution of the column water vapor field. Analysis of the budget of the spatial variance of column-integrated frozen moist static energy (MSE), following Wing and Emanuel (2014), reveals that the direct radiative feedback (including significant cloud longwave effects) is dominant in both the initial development of self-aggregation and the maintenance of an aggregated state. A low-level circulation at intermediate stages of aggregation does appear to transport MSE from drier to moister regions, but this circulation is mostly balanced by other advective effects of opposite sign and is forced by horizontal anomalies of convective heating (not radiation). Sensitivity studies with either fixed prescribed radiative cooling, fixed prescribed surface fluxes, or both do not show full self-aggregation from homogeneous initial conditions, though fixed surface fluxes do not disaggregate an initialized aggregated state. A sensitivity study in which rain evaporation is turned off shows more rapid self-aggregation, while a run with this change plus fixed radiative cooling still shows strong self-aggregation, supporting a “moisture-memory” effect found in Muller and Bony (2015). Interestingly, self-aggregation occurs even in simulations with sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of 295 and 290 K, with direct radiative feedbacks dominating the budget of MSE variance, in contrast to results in some previous studies.

Convective Self-Aggregation in Numerical Simulations: A Review

Organized convection in the tropics occurs across a range of spatial and temporal scales and strongly influences cloud cover and humidity. One mode of organization found is “self-aggregation,” in which moist convection spontaneously organizes into one or several isolated clusters despite spatially homogeneous boundary conditions and forcing. Self-aggregation is driven by interactions between clouds, moisture, radiation, surface fluxes, and circulation, and occurs in a wide variety of idealized simulations of radiative–convective equilibrium. Here we provide a review of convective self-aggregation in numerical simulations, including its character, causes, and effects. We describe the evolution of self-aggregation including its time and length scales and the physical mechanisms leading to its triggering and maintenance, and we also discuss possible links to climate and climate change.

Column Water Vapor Statistics and Their Relationship to Deep Convection, Vertical and Horizontal Circulation, and Moisture Structure at Nauru

AbstractRelationships among relatively high-frequency probability distribution functions (pdfs) of anomalous column water vapor (cwv), precipitating deep convection, and the vertical and horizontal structures of circulation and tropospheric moisture are investigated for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) climate observing facility at Nauru in the western equatorial Pacific. At the highest frequencies (subdaily) analyzed, the cwv pdf exhibits a Gaussian core with pronounced longer-than-Gaussian, approximately exponential tails, with the relatively lower-frequency submonthly pdfs becoming more Gaussian distributed across the entire range of cwv variability. The genesis and morphology of the longer-than-Gaussian tails are examined within the context of several hypothetical mechanisms outlined in prior work. For example, pdf conditioning on ARM optical gauge precipitation measurements reveals an association of the positive-side tail with precipitating deep convective conditions; thus, despite the con...

Evaluation of the model representation of the evolution of convective systems using satellite observations of outgoing longwave radiation

[1] We introduce a technique for assessing the diurnal development of convective storm systems based on outgoing longwave radiation fields. Using the size distribution of the storms measured from a series of images, we generate an array in the length scale‐time domain based on the standard score statistic. It demonstrates succinctly the size evolution of storms as well as the dissipation kinematics. It also provides evidence related to the temperature evolution of the cloud tops. We apply this approach to a test case comparing observations made by the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget instrument to output from the Met Office Unified Model run at two resolutions. The 12 km resolution model produces peak convective activity on all length scales significantly earlier in the day than shown by the observations and no evidence for storms growing in size. The 4 km resolution model shows realistic timing and growth evolution, although the dissipation mechanism still differs from the observed data. Citation: Pearson, K. J., R. J. Hogan, R. P. Allan, G. M. S. Lister, and C. E. Holloway (2010), Evaluation of the model representation of the evolution of convective systems using satellite observations of outgoing longwave radiation, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D20206, doi:10.1029/2010JD014265.