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Effects of convection on the removal of the multiplicity of stable states in one‐dimensional vertical models
Author(s) -
Pujol Toni
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1256/qj.02.144
Subject(s) - convection , radiative transfer , free convective layer , lapse rate , atmospheric convection , troposphere , physics , atmospheric sciences , wavelength , radiation , mechanics , computational physics , environmental science , optics
Here I develop a model of a radiative–convective atmosphere with both radiative and convective schemes highly simplified. The atmospheric absorption of radiation at selective wavelengths makes use of constant mass absorption coefficients in finite width spectral bands. The convective regime is introduced by using a prescribed lapse rate in the troposphere. The main novelty of the radiative–convective model developed here is that it is solved without using any angular approximation for the radiation field. The solution obtained in the purely radiation mode (i.e. with convection ignored) leads to multiple equilibria of stable states, being very similar to some results recently found in simple models of planetary atmospheres. However, the introduction of convective processes removes the multiple equilibria of stable states. This shows the importance of taking convective processes into account even for qualitative analyses of planetary atmospheres. Copyright © 2004 Royal Meteorological Society.