The Impact of Hybrid Usage of a Cumulus Parameterization Scheme on Tropical Convection and Large-Scale Circulations in a Global Cloud-System Resolving Model

Abstract

The impact of activating a cumulus parameterization scheme in the global nonhydrostatic icosahedral atmospheric model (NICAM) coupled with a one-dimensional (1-D) mixed-layer ocean model is assessed using a cloud-system-resolving, 14-km mesh. The Chikira-Sugiyama (CS) scheme, which employs an entrainment rate sensitive to the humidity of the environment, can consider congestus clouds in the tropics when used in conventional global climate models. Congestus clouds are underresolved in the default 14-km mesh NICAM. In the present study, boreal summer NICAM simulations are performed with and without the CS scheme, and several different scheme parameters are evaluated. The results show that the horizontal scale of convection and precipitable water increased in the tropics when using the CS scheme. Model adjustments were apparent at two different timescales: a rapid adjustment within the first week and a slower adjustment at 1 to 2 months. Both effects were magnified in the simulations that employed smaller values for the parameter that defines the fractional of loss of buoyancy-generated energy in parameterized convection. The upward branch of the Hadley circulation shifted northward, and the Walker circulation was enhanced when the CS scheme was activated. These large-scale adjustments suggested that increased midtropospheric moisture in the tropics tends to favor larger organized convective activities, which require an abundant supply of moisture, which, in this case, is available to the north of the equatorial West Pacific Ocean.