A Numerical Study of the Vertical Transport of Momentum in a Tropical Rainband

Abstract

The vertical transport of horizontal momentum in a convective tropical rainband is studied using a two-dimensional cloud ensemble model. Twelve simulations are made under the same large-scale conditions. The vertical transports of v momentum (parallel to the rainband) are essentially the same in all of the simulations, even though the structure of the clouds is different in each of the runs. The magnitude of the v-memomentum transport by clouds is fairly large. It takes only half of a day to smooth out the tropical low-level easterly jet parallel to the rainband if no other processes am operating. The vertical transports of u momentum (perpendicular to the rainband) are quite different in all of the simulations. This difference can be explained by the dissimilarities in the distributions of horizontal momentum associated with various cloud configurations. The simulated vertical transports of horizontal momentum are compared with those computed with the Schneider and Lindzen scheme. The results suggest that their scheme is basically correct and usable if some improvements are made.