Clouds and convective self‐aggregation in a multimodel ensemble of radiative‐convective equilibrium simulations

The Radiative-Convective Equilibrium Model Intercomparison Project (RCEMIP) is an intercomparison of multiple types of numerical models configured in radiative-convective equilibrium (RCE). RCE is an idealization of the tropical atmosphere that has long been used to study basic questions in climate science. Here, we employ RCE to investigate the role that clouds and convective activity play in determining cloud feedbacks, climate sensitivity, the state of convective aggregation, and the equilibrium climate. RCEMIP is unique among intercomparisons in its inclusion of a wide range of model types, including atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs), single column models (SCMs), cloud-resolving models (CRMs), large eddy simulations (LES), and global cloud-resolving models (GCRMs). The first results are presented from the RCEMIP ensemble of more than 30 models. While there are large differences across the RCEMIP ensemble in the representation of mean profiles of temperature, humidity, and cloudiness, in a majority of models anvil clouds rise, warm, and decrease in area coverage in response to an increase in sea surface temperature (SST). Nearly all models exhibit self-aggregation in large domains and agree that self-aggregation acts to dry and warm the troposphere, reduce high cloudiness, and increase cooling to space. The degree of self-aggregation exhibits no clear tendency with warming. There is a wide range of climate sensitivities, but models with parameterized convection tend to have lower climate sensitivities than models with explicit convection. In models with parameterized convection, aggregated simulations have lower climate sensitivities than unaggregated simulations.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Wing, Allison A.
Stauffer, Catherine L.
Becker, Tobias
Reed, Kevin A.
Ahn, Min‐Seop
Arnold, Nathan P.
Bony, Sandrine
Branson, Mark
Bryan, George H.
Chaboureau, Jean‐Pierre
De Roode, Stephan R.
Gayatri, Kulkarni
Hohenegger, Cathy
Hu, I‐Kuan
Jansson, Fredrik
Jones, Todd R.
Khairoutdinov, Marat
Kim, Daehyun
Martin, Zane K.
Matsugishi, Shuhei
Medeiros, Brian
Miura, Hiroaki
Moon, Yumin
Müller, Sebastian K.
Ohno, Tomoki
Popp, Max
Prabhakaran, Thara
Randall, David
Rios‐Berrios, Rosimar
Rochetin, Nicolas
Roehrig, Romain
Romps, David M.
Ruppert, James H.
Satoh, Masaki
Silvers, Levi G.
Singh, Martin S.
Stevens, Bjorn
Tomassini, Lorenzo
van Heerwaarden, Chiel C.
Wang, Shuguang
Zhao, Ming
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2020-09-18T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:13:57.965991
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:23718
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Wing, Allison A., Stauffer, Catherine L., Becker, Tobias, Reed, Kevin A., Ahn, Min‐Seop, Arnold, Nathan P., Bony, Sandrine, Branson, Mark, Bryan, George H., Chaboureau, Jean‐Pierre, De Roode, Stephan R., Gayatri, Kulkarni, Hohenegger, Cathy, Hu, I‐Kuan, Jansson, Fredrik, Jones, Todd R., Khairoutdinov, Marat, Kim, Daehyun, Martin, Zane K., Matsugishi, Shuhei, Medeiros, Brian, Miura, Hiroaki, Moon, Yumin, Müller, Sebastian K., Ohno, Tomoki, Popp, Max, Prabhakaran, Thara, Randall, David, Rios‐Berrios, Rosimar, Rochetin, Nicolas, Roehrig, Romain, Romps, David M., Ruppert, James H., Satoh, Masaki, Silvers, Levi G., Singh, Martin S., Stevens, Bjorn, Tomassini, Lorenzo, van Heerwaarden, Chiel C., Wang, Shuguang, Zhao, Ming. (2020). Clouds and convective self‐aggregation in a multimodel ensemble of radiative‐convective equilibrium simulations. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7125wxw. Accessed 19 March 2025.

Harvest Source