A Quasi-Equilibrium Tropical Circulation Model—Formulation

Abstract

A class of model for simulation and theory of the tropical atmospheric component of climate variations is introduced. These models are referred to as quasi-equilibrium tropical circulation models, or QTCMs, because they make use of approximations associated with quasi-equilibrium (QE) convective parameterizations. Quasi-equilibrium convective closures tend to constrain the vertical temperature profile in convecting regions. This can be used to generate analytical solutions for the large-scale flow under certain approximations. A tropical atmospheric model of intermediate complexity is constructed by using the analytical solutions as the first basis function in a Galerkin representation of vertical structure. This retains much of the simplicity of the analytical solutions, while retaining full nonlinearity, vertical momentum transport, departures from QE, and a transition between convective and nonconvective zones based on convective available potential energy. The atmospheric model is coupled to a one-layer land surface model with interactive soil moisture and simulates its own tropical climatology. In the QTCM version presented here, the vertical structure of temperature variations is truncated to a single profile associated with deep convection. Though designed to be accurate in and near regions dominated by deep convection, the model simulates the tropical and subtropical climatology reasonably well, and even has a qualitative representation of midlatitude storm tracks. The model is computationally economical, since part of the solution has been carried out analytically, but the main advantage is relative simplicity of analysis under certain conditions. The formulation suggests a slightly different way of looking at the tropical atmosphere than has been traditional in tropical meteorology. While convective scales are unstable, the large-scale motions evolve with a positive effective stratification that takes into account the partial cancellation of adiabatic cooling by diabatic heating. A consistent treatment of the moist static energy budget aids the analysis of radiative and surface heat flux effects. This is particularly important over land regions where the zero net surface flux links land surface anomalies. The resulting simplification highlights the role of top-of-the-atmosphere fluxes including cloud feedbacks, and it illustrates the usefulness of this approach for analysis of convective regions. Reductions of the model for theoretical work or diagnostics are outlined.