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Linking atmospheric cloud radiative effects, tropical precipitation, and column relative humidity



Details

  • Journal Title:
    Geophysical Research Letters
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
    OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
  • Description:
    Studies in recent decades have demonstrated a robust relationship between tropical precipitation and column relative humidity (CRH). The present study identifies a similar relationship between CRH and the atmospheric cloud radiative effect (ACRE) calculated from satellite observations. Like precipitation, the ACRE begins to increase rapidly when CRH exceeds a critical value near 70%. We show that the ACRE can be estimated from CRH, similar to the way that CRH has been used to estimate precipitation. Our method reproduces the annual mean spatial structure of the ACRE in the tropics, and skillfully estimates the mean ACRE on monthly and daily time scales in six regions of the tropics. We propose that the exponential dependence of precipitation on CRH may be partially explained by cloud-longwave feedbacks, which facilitate a shift from convective to stratiform conditions.
  • Keywords:
  • Source:
    Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL094004
  • DOI:
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Funding:
    Grant no. NA19OAR4590155
  • Rights Information:
    CC BY
  • Compliance:
    Submitted
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha256:d5637d4de41b87ceadd42bd8ea1849f5746d9458d5ed4782ed0d68bbb6b55afa
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 2.01 MB ]
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