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Convection and Climate: What Have We Learned from Simple Models and Simplified Settings?

  • Convection and Climate (C Muller, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

We ask what fundamental insights about the relationship of tropical convection to climate have arisen from recent investigations using simplified models.

Recent Findings

The vertical distribution of relative humidity should remain approximately constant in a changed climate. The temperature of clouds in the upper troposphere should also remain effectively constant for climate changes likely to occur in response to human-induced warming. The fractional coverage of convective clouds will likely decrease slightly with warming, but it is not known how the albedo and net radiative effect of tropical convective clouds will change. The areal extent and net radiative effect of tropical convective clouds depend on the interactions of radiation, cloud physics, and turbulence within the extended upper-level ice clouds. SST gradients develop naturally as a result of the aggregation of convection and large-scale thermodynamics and circulation act to couple the cloud properties and the SST.

Summary

Radiative-convective equilibrium continues to provide insight into the structure and energy balance of the atmosphere by incorporating the interactions among radiation, cloud physics, and atmospheric motion.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Tim Cronin and an anonymous reviewer for very helpful comments and suggestions.

Funding

Support was from the National Science Foundation under Grant AGS-1549579 and from the Regional and Global Climate Modeling Program of the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-SC0012580).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Dennis L. Hartmann, Peter N. Blossey & Brittany D. Dygert

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Correspondence to Dennis L. Hartmann.

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Hartmann, D.L., Blossey, P.N. & Dygert, B.D. Convection and Climate: What Have We Learned from Simple Models and Simplified Settings?. Curr Clim Change Rep 5, 196–206 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-019-00136-9

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