Convective Influence on the Heat Balance of the Tropical Tropopause Layer Chris Bretherton and Peter Blossey Department of Atmospheric Sciences University of Washington Zhiming Kuang Harvard University
Dec 30, 2015
Convective Influence on the Heat Balance of the Tropical Tropopause Layer
Chris Bretherton and Peter BlosseyDepartment of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Washington
Zhiming KuangHarvard University
The TTL is the transitional layer between the troposphere and the stratosphere
Mean soundings over Samoa
TTLcold point tropopause
mixing barrier or asecondary tropopause
Is cold point T, q significantly affected by convection?
Maybe not…
Argument 1
Convective clouds
are rare in the TTL (Gettelman et al., JGR, 2002).
… but rare might be enough, for a slow TTL radiative response time.
Argument 2
A cold point tropopause solely in radiative equilibrium can exist well above the convectively adjusted region in a 1D model (Thuburn and Craig,
JGR, 2002)
…but is a 1D model good enough for this problem?
Convection top
Our approach: Use a cloud resolving model to examine TTL heat balance in radiative-convective equilibrium. Kuang and Bretherton 2004 JAS Similar approach, different result: Kuepper et al. 2004 JGR
• Colorado State University CRM (Khairoutdinov and Randall, JAS, 2003), anelastic, bulk microphysics, interactive radiation, 100 day run.
• Doubly periodic, 64km×64km domain, 1km horizontal grid.
• Uniform SST, zero wind shear, no diurnal cycle.
• Fixed ozone.• Init lower-strat water vapor = 4 ppmv.• Control simulation has <w> = 0.• Results robust for larger domain and
finer grid sizes.
Sponge layer
Level of zero rad. heating
Cold point level
EntrainmentLayer
LNB
0
LNB
Δθ Convective Mass flux
ConvectionRadiation
Entrainment of warm TTL air by occasional overshooting tops
The radiative spring is weak in the TTL: rad = T/Qrad ~ 30 d.
How much effect does convective cooling have on the temperature of the TTL?
Convective cooling removed
With convective cooling
A convective event
BL tracer (12 h decay)
cloud ice
Domain averaged values 500m above the cold point
In perturbed simulations, convective cooling maximum is also collocated with the cold point in this model.
Filled: convective heating rate Open: radiative heating rate
SST+2K W+0.3mm/s
radiativedynamical
Cold point
Cold point
Convective impactnegligible (like Thuburn+Craig)
Why different?- Radiation?- Humidity?- Transport?…an open problem.
Mock-Walker 2D CRM simulation (Blossey et al. poster)
• Radiatively-forced subsidence above convection.• Occasional convective penetration to cold point but little conv. cooling
100-200 d means
Summary• In some, but not other, CRM simulations of radiative-
convective equilibrium, eddy cooling due to overshooting convection affects cold point height and temperature.
• High CRM vertical resolution (100 m) is necessary to avoid spurious gravity-wave damping in the TTL.
• Walker-circulation results suggest that radiatively-driven subsidence above convective anvils may be at least as important.
• We still need to develop a TTL cloud-resolving modeling framework that includes appropriate feedbacks between convection and large-scale circulations.