David J. Raymond

A Theory for Long-Lived Mesoscale Convective Systems

Abstract It is proposed that certain long-lived mesoscale convective systems maintain themselves through an interaction between quasi-balanced vertical motions and the diabatic effects of moist convection. Latent heat release, evaporation and melting of precipitation, and thermal radiation are all shown to contribute to the creation of a positive potential vorticity anomaly in the lower troposphere. This anomaly can interact with a sheared environment so as to induce further lifting of low-level air and subsequent release of conditional instability.

A New Model of the Madden–Julian Oscillation

Abstract A new model of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) is presented. Cloud–radiation interactions in this model make the tropical atmosphere susceptible to large-scale radiative–convective overturning. The modeled MJO takes the form of such an instability, though its behavior is substantially modified by the effects of surface heat flux variability. The dynamics of the disturbance in the model are quasi-balanced, in the sense that the low-level flow in the disturbance is more associated with the vorticity than with the divergence. The cumulus parameterization used in the model allows a lag of several days to exist between the strongest surface heat flux into a column and the development of heavy precipitation in that column. This lag plays a key role in model dynamics.

Regulation of Moist Convection over the West Pacific Warm Pool

Abstract The mechanisms that regulate moist convection over the warm tropical oceans are not well understood. One school of thought holds that convection is caused by the convergence of moisture, which in turn is produced by an independent dynamical mechanism. Another school maintains that convection occurs as needed to just balance the production of convective instability and that the timescales to establish this balance is much less than the timescales of tropical disturbances. This is called the quasiequilibrium hypothesis. This paper explores how convection is actually governed over the west Pacific warm pool. Convection appears to be initiated there when the boundary-layer equivalent potential temperature exceeds a threshold value that is determined by conditions just above cloud base. Given known surface flux values and the propensity for convection to inject low equivalent potential temperature air into the boundary layer, it is shown that under most circumstances convection is regulated by a balan...

A stochastic mixing model for nonprecipitating cumulus clouds

Abstract Recent work suggests that nonprecipitating cumulus clouds must be considered as aggregates of many parcels always moving toward buoyancy equilibrium, but otherwise subject to a multiplicity of fates. For example, some parcels originating at low levels seem to ascend to their level of undilute neutral buoyancy before mixing with the environment, while others mix at intermediate levels. We present a model for a cumulus cloud incorporating these ideas. In spite of the apparent simplicity of the model, it compares favorably with observations.

The Mechanics of Gross Moist Stability

The gross moist stability relates the net lateral outflow of moist entropy or moist static energy from an atmospheric convective region to some measure of the strength of the convection in that region. If the gross moist stability can be predicted as a function of the local environmental conditions, then it becomes the key element in understanding how convection is controlled by the large-scale flow. This paper provides a guide to the various ways in which the gross moist stability is defined and the subtleties of its calculation from observations and models. Various theories for the determination of the gross moist stability are presented and its roles in current conceptual models for the tropical atmospheric circulation are analyzed. The possible effect of negative gross moist stability on the development and dynamics of tropical disturbances is currently of great interest.

Moisture Modes and the Madden–Julian Oscillation

Abstract Moisture mode instability is thought to occur in the tropical oceanic atmosphere when precipitation is a strongly increasing function of saturation fraction (precipitable water divided by saturated precipitable water) and when convection acts to increase the saturation fraction. A highly simplified model of the interaction between convection and large-scale flows in the tropics suggests that there are two types of convectively coupled disturbances: the moisture mode instability described above and another unstable mode dependent on fluctuations in the convective inhibition. The latter is associated with rapidly moving disturbances such as the equatorially coupled Kelvin wave. A toy aquaplanet beta-plane model with realistic sea surface temperatures produces a robust Madden–Julian oscillation–like disturbance that resembles the observed phenomenon in many ways. Convection in this model exhibits a strong dependence of precipitation on saturation fraction and does indeed act to increase this paramet...

EPIC2001 and the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere System of the Tropical East Pacific

Abstract Coupled global ocean–atmosphere models currently do a poor job of predicting conditions in the tropical east Pacific, and have a particularly hard time reproducing the annual cycle in this region. This poor performance is probably due to the sensitivity of the east Pacific to the inadequate representation of certain physical processes in the modeled ocean and atmosphere. The representations of deep cumulus convection, ocean mixing, and stratus region energetics are known to be problematic in such models. The U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) program sponsored the field experiment East Pacific Investigation of Climate Processes in the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere System 2001 (EPIC2001), which has the goal of providing the observational basis needed to improve the representation of certain key physical processes in models. In addition to physical processes, EPIC2001 research is directed toward a better understanding and simulation of the effects of short-term variability in the east ...

Convective Forcing in the Intertropical Convergence Zone of the Eastern Pacific

Abstract One of the goals of the East Pacific Investigation of Climate, year 2001 process study (EPIC2001), was to understand the mechanisms controlling the forcing of deep atmospheric convection over the tropical eastern Pacific. An intensive study was made of convection in a 4° × 4° square centered on 10°N, 95°W in September and October of 2001. This is called the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) study region because it encompasses the eastern Pacific intertropical convergence zone. Starting from an analysis of the theoretical possibilities and a plethora of dropsonde, in situ, radar, and satellite data, it is found that newly developing convection occurs where a deep layer of air (of order 1 km deep or deeper) is conditionally unstable with only weak convective inhibition. Shallower conditionally unstable layers are associated with numerous small clouds, but do not seem to produce deep convection. The occurrence of deep convection over the ITCZ study region is presumably related to the propensity ...

Large-Scale Modes of a Nonrotating Atmosphere with Water Vapor and Cloud–Radiation Feedbacks

Abstract A minimal model of a moist equatorial atmosphere is presented in which the precipitation rate is assumed to depend on just the vertically averaged saturation deficit and the convective available potential energy. When wind-induced surface heat exchange (WISHE) and cloud–radiation interactions are turned off, there are no growing modes. Gravity waves with wavenumbers smaller than a certain limit respond to a reduced static stability due to latent heat release, and therefore propagate more slowly than dry modes, while those with larger wavenumbers respond to the normal dry static stability. In addition, there exists a stationary mode that decays slowly with time. For realistic parameter values, the effect of reduced static stability on gravity waves is limited to wavelengths greater than the circumference of the earth. WISHE and cloud–radiation interactions both destabilize the stationary mode, but not the gravity waves.

Extension of the Stochastic Mixing Model to Cumulonimbus Clouds

Abstract The stochastic mixing model of cumulus clouds is extended to the case in which ice and precipitation form. A simple cloud microphysical model is adopted in which ice crystals and aggregates are carried along with the updraft, whereas raindrops, graupel, and hail are assumed to immediately fall out. The model is then applied to the 2 August 1984 case study of convection over the Magdalena Mountains of central New Mexico, with excellent results. The formation of ice and precipitation can explain the transition of this system from a cumulus congestus cloud to a thunderstorm.