Increases in moist-convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative-convective equilibrium

The scaling of updraught velocities over a wide range of surface temperatures is investigated in simulations of radiative-convective equilibrium with a cloud-system resolving model. The updraught velocities increase with warming, with the largest fractional increases occurring in the upper troposphe...

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Main Authors: Singh, Martin Simran, O'Gorman, Paul
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Wiley Blackwell 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109498
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1748-0816
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author Singh, Martin Simran
O'Gorman, Paul
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Singh, Martin Simran
O'Gorman, Paul
author_sort Singh, Martin Simran
collection MIT
description The scaling of updraught velocities over a wide range of surface temperatures is investigated in simulations of radiative-convective equilibrium with a cloud-system resolving model. The updraught velocities increase with warming, with the largest fractional increases occurring in the upper troposphere and for the highest percentile updraughts. A plume model approximately reproduces the increases in updraught velocities if the plume environment is prescribed as the mean profile in each simulation while holding the entrainment and microphysical assumptions fixed. Convective available potential energy (CAPE) also increases with warming in the simulations but at a much faster fractional rate when compared with the square of the updraught velocities. This discrepancy is investigated with a two-plume model in which a weakly entraining plume represents the most intense updraughts, and the environment is assumed to adjust so that a more strongly entraining plume has negligible buoyancy. The two-plume model suggests that updraught velocities increase with warming at a lower fractional rate than implied by the CAPE because of the influence of entrainment on both the mean stratification and the updraughts themselves.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1094982022-09-30T16:45:05Z Increases in moist-convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative-convective equilibrium Singh, Martin Simran O'Gorman, Paul Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences O'Gorman, Paul Singh, Martin Simran O'Gorman, Paul The scaling of updraught velocities over a wide range of surface temperatures is investigated in simulations of radiative-convective equilibrium with a cloud-system resolving model. The updraught velocities increase with warming, with the largest fractional increases occurring in the upper troposphere and for the highest percentile updraughts. A plume model approximately reproduces the increases in updraught velocities if the plume environment is prescribed as the mean profile in each simulation while holding the entrainment and microphysical assumptions fixed. Convective available potential energy (CAPE) also increases with warming in the simulations but at a much faster fractional rate when compared with the square of the updraught velocities. This discrepancy is investigated with a two-plume model in which a weakly entraining plume represents the most intense updraughts, and the environment is assumed to adjust so that a more strongly entraining plume has negligible buoyancy. The two-plume model suggests that updraught velocities increase with warming at a lower fractional rate than implied by the CAPE because of the influence of entrainment on both the mean stratification and the updraughts themselves. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant AGS-1148594) United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Research Opportunities in Earth and Space Science (grant 09-IDS09-0049) 2017-06-01T14:31:29Z 2017-06-01T14:31:29Z 2015-06 2015-02 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 00359009 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109498 Singh, Martin S., and Paul A. O’Gorman. “Increases in Moist-Convective Updraught Velocities with Warming in Radiative-Convective Equilibrium.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 141, no. 692 (June 4, 2015): 2828–2838. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1748-0816 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.2567 Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Wiley Blackwell Prof. O'Gorman via Chris Sherratt
spellingShingle Singh, Martin Simran
O'Gorman, Paul
Increases in moist-convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative-convective equilibrium
title Increases in moist-convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative-convective equilibrium
title_full Increases in moist-convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative-convective equilibrium
title_fullStr Increases in moist-convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative-convective equilibrium
title_full_unstemmed Increases in moist-convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative-convective equilibrium
title_short Increases in moist-convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative-convective equilibrium
title_sort increases in moist convective updraught velocities with warming in radiative convective equilibrium
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109498
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1748-0816
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