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Investigating the Fast Response of Precipitation Intensity and Boundary Layer Temperature to Atmospheric Heating Using a Cloud‐Resolving Model
Author(s) -
Chua Xin Rong,
Ming Yi,
Jeevanjee Nadir
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2019gl082408
Subject(s) - precipitation , atmospheric sciences , environmental science , boundary layer , troposphere , convection , intensity (physics) , radiative cooling , planetary boundary layer , radiative transfer , cloud forcing , climatology , latent heat , forcing (mathematics) , atmosphere (unit) , sensible heat , radiative forcing , meteorology , aerosol , mechanics , geology , physics , quantum mechanics
Abstract Coarse‐resolution global climate models cannot explicitly resolve the intensity distribution of tropical precipitation and how it responds to a forcing. We use a cloud‐resolving model to study how imposed atmospheric radiative heating (such as that caused by greenhouse gases or absorbing aerosols) may alter precipitation intensity in the setting of radiative‐convective equilibrium. It is found that the decrease in total precipitation is realized through preferentially reducing weak events. The intensity of strong precipitation events is maintained by a cancellation between the moistening of air parcels and weakening of updrafts. A boundary layer energy budget analysis suggests that free‐tropospheric heating raises boundary layer temperatures mainly through a reduction in rain reevaporation. This insight leads to a predictive scaling for the surface sensible and latent flux changes. The results imply that cloud microphysical processes play a key role in shaping the temperature and precipitation responses to atmospheric heating.