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Article Type:
Research Article

Is the Tropical Atmosphere in Convective Quasi-Equilibrium?

Jia-Lin Lin Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

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Taotao Qian Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

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Toshiaki Shinoda Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas

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Shuanglin Li Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Print Publication:
01 Jun 2015
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00681.1
Page(s):
4357–4372
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Abstract

The hypothesis of convective quasi-equilibrium (CQE) has dominated thinking about the interaction between deep moist convection and the environment for at least two decades. In this view, deep convection develops or decays almost instantly to remove any changes of convective instability, making the tropospheric temperature always tied to the boundary layer moist static energy. The present study examines the validity of the CQE hypothesis at different vertical levels using long-term sounding data from tropical convection centers. The results show that the tropical atmosphere is far from the CQE with much weaker warming in the middle and upper troposphere associated with the increase of boundary layer moist static energy. This is true for all the time scales resolved by the observational data, ranging from hourly to interannual and decadal variability. It is possibly caused by the ubiquitous existence of shallow convection and stratiform precipitation, both leading to sign reversal of heating from lower to upper troposphere. The simulations by 42 global climate models from phases 3 and 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparsion Project (CMIP3 and CMIP5) are also analyzed and compared with the observations.

Corresponding author address: Jia-Lin Lin, Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, 1036 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: lin.789@osu.edu

Abstract

The hypothesis of convective quasi-equilibrium (CQE) has dominated thinking about the interaction between deep moist convection and the environment for at least two decades. In this view, deep convection develops or decays almost instantly to remove any changes of convective instability, making the tropospheric temperature always tied to the boundary layer moist static energy. The present study examines the validity of the CQE hypothesis at different vertical levels using long-term sounding data from tropical convection centers. The results show that the tropical atmosphere is far from the CQE with much weaker warming in the middle and upper troposphere associated with the increase of boundary layer moist static energy. This is true for all the time scales resolved by the observational data, ranging from hourly to interannual and decadal variability. It is possibly caused by the ubiquitous existence of shallow convection and stratiform precipitation, both leading to sign reversal of heating from lower to upper troposphere. The simulations by 42 global climate models from phases 3 and 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparsion Project (CMIP3 and CMIP5) are also analyzed and compared with the observations.

Corresponding author address: Jia-Lin Lin, Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, 1036 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: lin.789@osu.edu
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