Response of atmospheric convection to vertical wind shear: Cloud-system-resolving simulations with parameterized large-scale circulation: Part I: Specified radiative cooling

Abstract

It is well known that vertical wind shear can organize deep convective systems and greatly extend their lifetimes. Much less is known about the influence of shear on the bulk properties of tropical convection in statistical equilibrium. To address the latter question, the authors present a series of cloud-resolving simulations on a doubly periodic domain with parameterized large-scale dynamics based on the weak temperature gradient (WTG) approximation. The horizontal-mean horizontal wind is relaxed strongly in these simulations toward a simple unidirectional linear vertical shear profile in the troposphere. The strength and depth of the shear layer are varied as control parameters. Surface enthalpy fluxes are prescribed. The results fall in two distinct regimes. For weak wind shear, time-averaged rainfall decreases with shear and convection remains disorganized. For larger wind shear, rainfall increases with shear, as convection becomes organized into linear mesoscale systems. This nonmonotonic dependence of rainfall on shear is observed when the imposed surface fluxes are moderate. For larger surface fluxes, convection in the unsheared basic state is already strongly organized, but increasing wind shear still leads to increasing rainfall. In addition to surface rainfall, the impacts of shear on the parameterized large-scale vertical velocity, convective mass fluxes, cloud fraction, and momentum transport are also discussed. © 2014 American Meteorological Society.