On the Interplay Between Convective Aggregation, Surface Temperature Gradients, and Climate Sensitivity.

This study explores the extent to which convective aggregation interacts with sea surface temperature (SST) and affects climate sensitivity. For this purpose, radiative-convective equilibrium simulations are run with a general circulation model coupled to an ocean mixed layer, and several types of perturbations are imposed to the ocean-atmosphere system. Convective aggregation turns out to be much more sensitive to temperature in coupled experiments than in prescribed SST experiments.

Thermodynamic control of anvil cloud amount.

General circulation models show that as the surface temperature increases, the convective anvil clouds shrink. By analyzing radiative-convective equilibrium simulations, we show that this behavior is rooted in basic energetic and thermodynamic properties of the atmosphere: As the climate warms, the clouds rise and remain at nearly the same temperature, but find themselves in a more stable atmosphere; this enhanced stability reduces the convective outflow in the upper troposphere and decreases the anvil cloud fraction. By warming the troposphere and increasing the upper-tropospheric stability, the clustering of deep convection also reduces the convective outflow and the anvil cloud fraction.