The Role of Clouds, Water Vapor, Circulation, and Boundary Layer Structure in the Sensitivity of the Tropical Climate

Abstract

The physical mechanisms that affect the tropical sea surface temperature (SST) are investigated using a two-box equilibrium model of the Tropics. One box represents the convecting, warm SST, high humidity region of the Tropics, and the other box represents the subsidence region with low humidity, boundary layer clouds, and cooler SST. The two regions communicate by energy and moisture fluxes that are proportional to the strength of the overturning circulation that couples the two regions. The boundary layer properties in the subsiding region are predicted with a mixing line model. Humidity above the inversion in the subsiding region is predicted from moisture conservation. The humidity above the inversion in the subsiding region increases rapidly with temperature, but this has less effect on the sensitivity than expected, because the inversion lowers as the humidity above the inversion is increased. Some of the increased greenhouse effect of the free troposphere can be offset by decreased greenhouse effect of the boundary layer. Increasing the area of the warm, convective region increases the SSTs, because of the greenhouse effect of the greater upper-tropospheric water vapor in the convective region. The circulation strength is constrained by radiative cooling in the cold pool. The strength of the circulation decreases with increasing convective area, because the increase in dry static stability overwhelms the increase in cooling rate. Although they have strong individual effects on longwave and shortwave radiation, high clouds in the convective region do not affect the tropical SSTs strongly, because their net radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere is small. Low clouds in the subsidence region have a strong cooling affect on the tropical SST, because they strongly reduce net radiative heating at the top of the atmosphere. A negative feedback is produced if the low clouds are predicted from the observed relationship between stratus cloud amount and lower-tropospheric stability.