Interannual variations of tropical upper tropospheric humidity and tropical rainy-region SST: Comparisons between models, reanalyses, and observations

Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres

Volumn 115, Issue 21, 2010, Pages

  Chuang, Huiwen ^a   Huang, Xianglei ^a   Minschwaner, Kenneth ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

^b NEW MEXICO INSTITUTE OF MINING AND TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ATMOSPHERIC HUMIDITY; ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE; COMPUTER SIMULATION; HUMIDITY CONTROL; INFRARED DEVICES; NATURAL CONVECTION; TROPICS; TROPOSPHERE; WATER VAPOR;

AIRS DATA; CORRELATION COEFFICIENT; DEEP CONVECTION; DRYING MECHANISM; GLOBAL CLIMATE MODEL; IDEALIZED MODELS; INTERANNUAL; INTERANNUAL VARIATION; SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES; SST ANOMALIES; TROPICAL TEMPERATURES; TROPOSPHERIC HUMIDITY; UPPER TROPOSPHERE; VERTICAL TRANSPORTS;

CLIMATE MODELS;

AIR-SEA INTERACTION; ANNUAL VARIATION; ATMOSPHERIC MODELING; CLIMATE MODELING; COMPARATIVE STUDY; CONVECTION; HUMIDITY; RAINFALL; SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE; TROPICAL REGION; TROPOSPHERE; VERTICAL MIXING; WATER VAPOR;

EID: 78649365337     PISSN: 01480227     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1029/2010JD014205     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. Adler, R. F., et al. (2003), The version-2 global precipitation climatology project (GPCP) monthly precipitation analysis (1979-present), J. Hydrometeorol., 4, 1147-1167.
2. Betts, A. K., and B. A. Albrecht (1987), Conserved Variable Analysis of the Convective Boundary-Layer Thermodynamic Structure over the Tropical Oceans, J. Atmos. Sci., 44, 83-99.
3. Bhat, G. S., et al. (2004), Sea surface temperature of the Bay of Bengal derived from the TRMM Microwave Imager, J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol., 21, 1283-1290.
4. Bony, S., et al. (2006), How well do we understand and evaluate climate change feedback processes', J. Clim., 19, 3445-3482.
5. Camp, C. D., M. S. Roulston, and Y. L. Yung (2003), Temporal and spatial patterns of the interannual variability of total ozone in the tropics, J. Geophys. Res., 108(D20), 4643, doi:10.1029/2001JD001504.
6. Chen, J. Y., et al. (2008), The spatiotemporal structure of twentieth-century climate variations in observations and reanalyses. Part I: Long-term trend, J. Clim., 21, 2611-2633.
7. Dessler, A., and S. Sherwood (2000), Simulations of tropical upper tropospheric humidity, J. Geophys. Res., 105(D15), 20,155-20,163.
8. Dessler, A. E., Z. Zhang, and P. Yang (2008), Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003-2008, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L20704, doi:10.1029/2008GL035333.
9. Fetzer, E. J., B. H. Lambrigtsen, A. Eldering, H. H. Aumann, and M. T. Chahine (2006), Biases in total precipitable water vapor climatologies from Atmospheric Infrared Sounder and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D09S16, doi:10.1029/2005JD006598. (Pubitemid 43950195)
10. Folkins, I. (2002), Origin of lapse rate changes in the upper tropical troposphere, J. Atmos. Sci., 59, 992-1005.
11. Folkins, I., S. J. Oltmans, and A. M. Thompson (2000), Tropical convective outflow and near surface equivalent potential temperatures, Geophys. Res. Lett., 27(16), 2549-2552.
12. Folkins, I., K. K. Kelly, and E. M. Weinstock (2002), A simple explanation for the increase in relative humidity between 11 and 14 km in the tropics, J. Geophys. Res., 107(D23), 4736, doi:10.1029/2002JD002185. (Pubitemid 43197272)
13. Fueglistaler, S., A. E. Dessler, T. J. Dunkerton, I. Folkins, Q. Fu, and P. W. Mote (2009), Tropical tropopause layer, Rev. Geophys., 47, RG1004, doi:10.1029/2008RG000267.
14. Hartmann, D. L., and M. L. Michelsen (2002), Comment on "No evidence for iris" - Reply, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 83, 1349-1352.
15. Held, I. M., and B. J. Soden (2000), Water vapor feedback and global warming, Ann. Rev. Energy. Environ., 25, 441-475.
16. Houze, R. A., Jr., and A. K. Betts (1981), Convection in GATE, Rev. Geophys., 19(4), 541-576.
17. Huang, X., B. J. Soden, and D. L. Jackson (2005), Interannual co-variability of tropical temperature and humidity: A comparison of model, reanalysis data and satellite observation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L17808, doi:10.1029/2005GL023375. (Pubitemid 41536241)
18. Huang, X., V. Ramaswamy, and M. D. Schwarzkopf (2006), Quantification of the source of errors in AM2 simulated tropical clear-sky outgoing longwave radiation, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D14107, doi:10.1029/ 2005JD006576.
19. Huffman, G. J., et al. (2001), Global precipitation at one-degree daily resolution from multisatellite observations, J. Hydrometeorol., 2, 36-50.
20. Ingram, W. J. (2002), On the robustness of the water vapor feedback: GCM vertical resolution and formulation, J. Clim., 15, 917-921.
21. John, V. O., and B. J. Soden (2006), Does convectively-detrained cloud ice enhance water vapor feedback', Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L20701, doi:10.1029/2006GL027260. (Pubitemid 44941721)
22. John, V. O., and B. J. Soden (2007), Temperature and humidity biases in global climate models and their impact on climate feedbacks, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L18704, doi:10.1029/2007GL030429. (Pubitemid 350186715)
23. Kiehl, J. T., et al. (1998), The National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate Model: CCM3, J. Clim., 11, 1131-1149.
24. Kubota, T., and T. Terao (2004), Interdecadal variability of the seasonalscale persistence in the tropical mean tropospheric temperature, J. Meteorol. Soc. Jap., 82, 1213-1221.
25. Lindzen, R. S. (1990), Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 71, 288-299.
26. Lindzen, R. S., et al. (2001), Does the earth have an adaptive infrared iris', Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 82, 417-432.
27. Minschwaner, K., and A. E. Dessler (2004), Water vapor feedback in the tropical upper troposphere: Model results and observations, J. Clim., 17, 1272-1282.
28. Moorthi, S., and M. J. Suarez (1992), Relaxed Arakawa-Schubert - a parameterization of moist convection for general-circulation models, Mon. Weather. Rev., 120, 978-1002.
29. Nordeng, T. E. (1994), Extended versions of the convective parameterization scheme at ECMWF and their impact on the mean and transient activity of the model in the tropics, Technical Memorandum No. 206, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, United Kingdom.
30. Pierce, D. W., T. P. Barnett, E. J. Fetzer, and P. J. Gleckler (2006), Threedimensional tropospheric water vapor in coupled climate models compared with observations from the AIRS satellite system, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L21701, doi:10.1029/2006GL027060. (Pubitemid 46747146)
31. Pierrehumbert, R. T. (1998), Lateral mixing as a source of subtropical water vapor, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25(2), 151-154.
32. Pierrehumbert, R. T., and R. Roca (1998), Evidence for control of Atlantic subtropical humidity by large scale advection, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25(24), 4537-4540.
33. Randall, D. A., and D.-M. Pan (1993), Implementation of the Arakawa-Schubert cumulus parameterization with a prognostic closure, in Cumulus Parameterization, a Meteorological Monograph, American Meteorological Society, edited by K. Emanuel and D. Raymond, pp. 137-144.
34. Reynolds, R. W., and D. C. Marsico (1993), An Improved Real-Time Global Sea-Surface Temperature Analysis, J. Clim., 6, 114-119.
35. Reynolds, R. W., et al. (2002), An improved in situ and satellite SST analysis for climate, J. Clim., 15, 1609-1625.
36. Ryoo, J. M., et al. (2009), PDFs of Tropical Tropospheric Humidity: Measurements and Theory, J. Clim., 22, 3357-3373.
37. Sherwood, S. C. (1996), Maintenance of the free-tropospheric tropical water vapor distribution. 1. Clear regime budget, J. Clim., 9, 2903-2918.
38. Sherwood, S. C., and A. E. Dessler (2003), Convective mixing near the tropical tropopause: Insights from seasonal variations, J. Atmos. Sci., 60, 2674-2685.
39. Sherwood, S. C., et al. (2006), A distribution law for free-tropospheric relative humidity, J. Clim., 19, 6267-6277.
40. Sherwood, S. C., R. Roca, T. M. Weckwerth, and N. G. Andronova (2010), Tropospheric water vapor, convection, and climate, Rev. Geophys., 48, RG2001, doi:10.1029/2009RG000301.
41. Simmons, A., et al. (2006), ERA-Interim: New ECMWF reanalysis products from 1989 onwards, ECMWF Newsletter, 110, 25-35.
42. Sobel, A. H., et al. (2002), The ENSO signal in tropical tropospheric temperature, J. Clim., 15, 2702-2706.
43. Soden, B., and F. Bretherton (1994), Evaluation of water vapor distribution in general circulation models using satellite observations, J. Geophys. Res., 99(D1), 1187-1210.
44. Soden, B. J., and R. Fu (1995), A satellite analysis of deep convection, upper-tropospheric humidity, and the greenhouse-effect, J. Clim., 8, 2333-2351.
45. Soden, B. J., and I. M. Held (2006), An assessment of climate feedbacks in coupled ocean-atmosphere models, J. Clim., 19, 3354-3360.
46. Soden, B. J., et al. (2005), The radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening, Science, 310, 841-844.
47. Stone, P. H., and J. H. Carlson (1979), Atmospheric Lapse Rate Regimes and Their Parameterization, J. Atmos. Sci., 36, 415-423.
48. Su, H., W. G. Read, J. H. Jiang, J. W. Waters, D. L. Wu, and E. J. Fetzer (2006), Enhanced positive water vapor feedback associated with tropical deep convection: New evidence from Aura MLS, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L05709, doi:10.1029/2005GL025505.
49. Su, H., et al. (2008), Variations of tropical upper tropospheric clouds with sea surface temperature and implications for radiative effects, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D10211, doi:10.1029/2007JD009624.
50. Sun, D. Z., and I. M. Held (1996), A comparison of modeled and observed relationships between interannual variations of water vapor and temperature, J. Clim., 9, 665-675.
51. Sun, D. Z., and R. S. Lindzen (1993), Distribution of Tropical Tropospheric Water-Vapor, J. Atmos. Sci., 50, 1643-1660.
52. Sun, D. Z., et al. (2001), Vertical correlations of water vapor in GCMs, Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 259-262.
53. Tiedtke, M. (1989), A Comprehensive Mass Flux Scheme for Cumulus Parameterization in Large-Scale Models, Mon. Weather. Rev., 117, 1779-1800.
54. Thompson, R. M., et al. (1979), Structure and Properties of Synoptic-Scale Wave Disturbances in the Intertropical Convergence Zone of the Eastern Atlantic, J. Atmos. Sci., 36, 53-72.
55. Udelhofen, P., and D. Hartmann (1995), Influence of tropical cloud systems on the relative humidity in the upper troposphere, J. Geophys. Res., 100(D4), 7423-7440.
56. Uppala, S., et al. (2004), ERA-40: ECMWF's 45-year reanalysis of the global atmosphere and surface conditions 1957-2002, ECMWF Newsletter, 101, 2-21.
57. Uppala, S. M., et al. (2005), The ERA-40 re-analysis, Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 131, 2961-3012.
58. Uppala, S., et al. (2008), Towards a climate data assimilation system: Status update of ERA-Interim, ECMWF Newsletter, 115, 12-18.
59. Wallace, J. M. (1992), Effect of deep convection on the regulation of tropical sea-surface temperature, Nature, 357, 230-231.
60. Xie, P. P., et al. (2003), GPCP Pentad precipitation analyses: An experimental dataset based on gauge observations and satellite estimates, J. Clim., 16, 2197-2214.
61. Xu, K. M., and K. A. Emanuel (1989), Is the tropical atmosphere conditionally unstable, Mon. Weather. Rev., 117, 1471-1479.
62. Zhang, G. J., and N. A. McFarlane (1995), Sensitivity of climate simulations to the parameterization of cumulus convection in the Canadian climate center general-circulation model, Atmos. Ocean, 33, 407-446.