Identification

Title

Is the net cloud radiative effect constrained to be uniform over the tropical warm pools?

Abstract

Global radiative-convective equilibrium simulations are used to investigate the hypothesis that mutual interactions among cloud albedo, sea surface temperature gradients, and atmospheric circulation constrain the net cloud radiative effect (CRE) to be similar in convective and nonconvective regions over the tropical warm pools. We perform an experiment in which convective clouds interact naturally with the ocean and atmosphere by forming over the warmest water and shading it and an experiment in which this interaction is removed by randomizing cloud shading of the ocean. Removing the cloud shading interaction enhances sea surface temperature gradients, lateral atmospheric heat transport, and large-scale convective aggregation and produces convective clouds with much more negative net CRE. These findings support the hypothesis that feedbacks between sea surface temperature and convection are critical to obtaining similar net CRE in convective and nonconvective regions over the tropical warm pools.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d71j9f4j

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2019-11-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact