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Several recent studies have shown the width of the tropical belt has increased over the last several decades. The mechanisms driving tropical expansion are not well known and the recent expansion is underpredicted by state-of-the art GCMs. We use the CAM3 GCM to investigate how tropical width responds to idealized atmospheric heat sources, focusing on zonal displacement of the tropospheric jets. The heat sources include global and zonally restricted lower-tropospheric warmings and stratospheric coolings, which coarsely represent possible impacts of ozone or aerosol changes. Similar to prior studies with simplified GCMs, we find that stratospheric cooling - particularly at high-latitudes - shifts jets poleward and excites Northern and Southern Annular Mode (NAM/SAM)-type responses. We also find, however, that modest heating of the midlatitude boundary layer drives a similar response; heating at high latitudes provokes a weaker, equatorward shift and tropical heating produces no shift. Over 70 % of the variance in annual mean jet displacements across 27 experiments is accounted for by a newly proposed 'Expansion Index', which compares mid-latitude tropospheric warming to that at other latitudes. We find that previously proposed factors, including tropopause height and tropospheric stability, do not fully explain the results. Results suggest recently observed tropical expansion could have been driven not only by stratospheric cooling, but also by mid-latitude heating sources due for example to ozone or aerosol changes.

Two assumptions commonly applied in convection schemes—the diagnostic and quasi‐equilibrium assumptions—imply that convective activity (e.g., convective precipitation) is controlled only by the large‐scale (macrostate) environment at the time. In contrast, numerical experiments indicate a "memory" or dependence of convection also on its own previous activity whereby subgrid‐scale (microstate) structures boost but are also boosted by convection. In this study we investigated this memory by comparing single‐column model behavior in two idealized tests previously executed by a cloud‐resolving model (CRM). Conventional convection schemes that employ the diagnostic assumption fail to reproduce the CRM behavior. The memory‐capable org and Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique Zoom cold pool schemes partially capture the behavior, but fail to fully exhibit the strong reinforcing feedbacks implied by the CRM. Analysis of this failure suggests that it is because the CRM supports a linear (or superlinear) dependence of the subgrid structure growth rate on the precipitation rate, while the org scheme assumes a sublinear dependence. Among varying versions of the org scheme, the growth rate of the org variable representing subgrid structure is strongly associated with memory strength. These results demonstrate the importance of parameterizing convective memory, and the ability of idealized tests to reveal shortcomings of convection schemes and constrain model structural assumptions. Plain Language Summary: Convection (clouds) has memory, can remember its own history, and is affected by it when evolving to the next step. However, this memory effect is often neglected in convection schemes, which are approximate sub‐models used to represent (parameterize) convective processes in climate models whose resolutions are too low to properly resolve convection. In this study we apply two simple tests to probe the memory behavior of various convection schemes. We found that most conventional schemes fail to mimic the memory response of a cloud‐resolving model (CRM) where convection is properly represented. In two schemes where memory is parameterized, their responses are more similar but still bear significant differences to the CRM. We show that this discrepancy can be explained by the equations used in these schemes. For one of the schemes, we also found that the strength of memory is related to the growth rate of the memory variable, rather than its absolute value. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of taking memory into account in convection schemes, and show that the two tests implemented here are simple but useful in shining light on potential shortcomings of convection schemes and hence also ways to improve them. Key Points: Several convection schemes were tested via two recently proposed, idealized experiments designed to isolate memory‐like behaviorAll schemes either fail to show any such behavior, or show weaker memory than an explicit cloud‐resolving modelBy fitting simple equation sets to the results, structural assumptions and parameters related to subgrid memory processes can be constrained [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several recent studies have shown the width of the tropical belt has increased over the last several decades. The mechanisms driving tropical expansion are not well known and the recent expansion is underpredicted by state-of-the art GCMs. We use the CAM3 GCM to investigate how tropical width responds to idealized atmospheric heat sources, focusing on zonal displacement of the tropospheric jets (TJ). The heat sources include global and zonally restricted lower-tropospheric warmings and stratospheric coolings, which coarsely represent possible impacts of ozone or aerosol changes. Similar to prior studies with simplified GCMs, we find that stratospheric cooling-particularly at high-latitudes-shifts jets poleward and excites Northern and Southern Annular Mode NAM/SAM)-type responses. We also find, however, that modest heating of the midlatitude boundary layer drives a similar response; heating at high latitudes provokes a weaker, equatorward shift and tropical heating produces no shift. Responses to stratospheric cooling are consistent with a wave-mean flow interaction involving increased wave refraction, and downward propagation of the stratospheric wind anomaly. Over 70% of the variance in annual mean jet displacements across 27 experiments, however, is accounted for by a newly proposed "Expansion Index", which compares mid-latitude tropospheric warming to that at other latitudes. We find that previously proposed factors, including tropopause height and tropospheric stability, do not fully explain the results. Results suggest recently observed tropical expansion could have been driven not only by stratospheric cooling, but also by mid-latitude heating sources due for example to ozone or aerosol changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperature and water vapor variations due to clouds in the TTL have been investigated using co-located MLS, CALISPO, and CloudSat data. Convective cooling occurs only up to cloud top heights, but there is warming above these heights in the TTL. Water vapor and ozone anomalies above cloud top heights support that the warming anomalies occur due to downward motion. Thicker clouds cause a greater magnitude of the temperature anomalies. Water vapor of the environment below cloud tops can either increase or decrease, depending on the cloud top height. The critical factor, which divides these different water vapor variations below cloud tops, is the relative humidity. Clouds hydrate the environment below 16 km, where the air after mixing between cloud and the environmental air does not reach saturation, but clouds dehydrate above 16 km, due to the supersaturation because of the larger temperature drop and the high initial relative humidity. Water vapor above cloud tops has negative anomalies compared to clear skies and suggests another dehydration mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A technique for detecting large hydrometeors at high altitudes is described here and applied to the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite/Microwave Limb Sounder (UARS/MLS) 203-GHz radiance measurements at tangent pressures between 200 and 46 hPa. At these tangent pressures the radiances remain optically thin and cloudy-sky radiances are brighter than normal clear-sky cases. Unlike infrared/visible cloud observations, the 203-GHz radiances can penetrate most ice clouds and are sensitive to ice crystals of convective origin. Rough ice water content (IWC) retrievals are made near the tropopause using estimated size distributions from in situ convective studies. The seasonal mean IWC observed at 100 hPa reaches vapor-equivalent 20 ppmv or more over convective centers, dominating the total water content. Convectively lofted ice, therefore, appears to be hydrologically significant at the tropical cold point. IWC is well correlated spatially with relative humidity with respect to ice (RHi) at 100 hPa during both the dry (January–March) and moist (July–September) periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]