Vertical Velocity in the Gray Zone

Details

• Journal Title:
  Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
• Personal Author:
  Jeevanjee, Nadir
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; CICSP (Cooperative Institute for Climate Science) ; GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory)
• Description:
  We describe how convective vertical velocities w(c) vary in the "gray zone'' of horizontal resolution, using both hydrostatic and nonhydrostatic versions of GFDL's FV3 dynamical core, as well as analytical solutions to the equations of motion. We derive a simple criterion (based on parcel geometries) for a model to resolve convection, and find that O(100 m) resolution can be required for convergence of w(c). We also find, both numerically and analytically, that hydrostatic systems overestimate w(c), by a factor of 2-3 in the convection-resolving regime. This overestimation is simply understood in terms of the "effective buoyancy pressure'' of Jeevanjee and Romps (2015, 2016).
• Source:
  Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 9(6), 2304-2316.
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1002/2017ms001059
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA14OAR4320106
• Rights Information:
  CC BY-NC-ND
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:e3e965e3cd6155f9259b5c1d546c7e228e0bb4c6b92c35f79652486946ebd609
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/20933/noaa_20933_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 778.07 KB ]