Thermodynamic Constraints on the Size Distributions of Tropical Clouds
Abstract
Tropical convective clouds evolve over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, which makes them difficult to simulate numerically. Here we propose that cloud statistical properties can be derived within a simplified time-independent coordinate system of cloud number n, saturated static energy h★, and cloud perimeter λ. Under the constraint that circulations around cloud edge compete with each other for total buoyant energy and air, we show that the product of cloud number and cloud perimeter nλ is invariant with λ and that cloud number follows a negative exponential with respect to cloud-edge deviations of h★; with respect to the mean. Overall, the summed perimeter of all clouds scales as the square root of the atmospheric static stability. These theoretical results suggest that the complexity of cloud field structures can be viewed statistically as an emergent property of atmospheric bulk thermodynamics. Comparison with a detailed tropical cloud field simulation shows general agreement to within ≤13%. For the sake of developing hypotheses about cloud temporal evolution that are testable in high resolution simulations, the shapes of tropical cloud perimeter distributions are predicted to be invariant as climate warms, although with a modest increase in total cloud amount.
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1539761
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0016282
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 123; Journal Issue: 16; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-897X
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Citation Formats
Garrett, Timothy J., Glenn, Ian B., and Krueger, Steven K. Thermodynamic Constraints on the Size Distributions of Tropical Clouds. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1029/2018jd028803.
Garrett, Timothy J., Glenn, Ian B., & Krueger, Steven K. Thermodynamic Constraints on the Size Distributions of Tropical Clouds. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018jd028803
Garrett, Timothy J., Glenn, Ian B., and Krueger, Steven K. Mon .
"Thermodynamic Constraints on the Size Distributions of Tropical Clouds". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018jd028803. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1539761.
@article{osti_1539761,
title = {Thermodynamic Constraints on the Size Distributions of Tropical Clouds},
author = {Garrett, Timothy J. and Glenn, Ian B. and Krueger, Steven K.},
abstractNote = {Tropical convective clouds evolve over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, which makes them difficult to simulate numerically. Here we propose that cloud statistical properties can be derived within a simplified time-independent coordinate system of cloud number n, saturated static energy h★, and cloud perimeter λ. Under the constraint that circulations around cloud edge compete with each other for total buoyant energy and air, we show that the product of cloud number and cloud perimeter nλ is invariant with λ and that cloud number follows a negative exponential with respect to cloud-edge deviations of h★; with respect to the mean. Overall, the summed perimeter of all clouds scales as the square root of the atmospheric static stability. These theoretical results suggest that the complexity of cloud field structures can be viewed statistically as an emergent property of atmospheric bulk thermodynamics. Comparison with a detailed tropical cloud field simulation shows general agreement to within ≤13%. For the sake of developing hypotheses about cloud temporal evolution that are testable in high resolution simulations, the shapes of tropical cloud perimeter distributions are predicted to be invariant as climate warms, although with a modest increase in total cloud amount.},
doi = {10.1029/2018jd028803},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres},
number = 16,
volume = 123,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {7}
}
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
The Theory of Hurricanes
journal, January 1991
- Emanuel, Kerry A.
- Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 23, Issue 1
Large-scale length and time-scales for use with stochastic convective parametrization
journal, December 2011
- Keane, R. J.; Plant, R. S.
- Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 138, Issue 666
Water's two height scales: The moist adiabat and the radiative troposphere
journal, October 2001
- Mapes, Brian E.
- Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 127, Issue 577
Cumulus Cloud Field Morphology and Spatial Patterns Derived from High Spatial Resolution Landsat Imagery
journal, December 1990
- Sengupta, S. K.; Welch, R. M.; Navar, M. S.
- Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 29, Issue 12
Clustering, randomness, and regularity in cloud fields: 5. The nature of regular cumulus cloud fields
journal, May 1998
- Nair, U. S.; Weger, R. C.; Kuo, K. S.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 103, Issue D10
Mixing in Shallow Cumulus Clouds Studied by Lagrangian Particle Tracking
journal, August 2008
- Heus, Thijs; van Dijk, Gertjan; Jonker, Harm J. J.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 65, Issue 8
Tropical anvil clouds and climate sensitivity
journal, August 2016
- Hartmann, Dennis L.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, Issue 32
Natural Convection as a Heat Engine: A Theory for CAPE
journal, February 1996
- Rennó, Nilton O.; Ingersoll, Andrew P.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 53, Issue 4
Scaling of tropical-cyclone dissipation
journal, July 2010
- Corral, Álvaro; Ossó, Albert; Llebot, Josep Enric
- Nature Physics, Vol. 6, Issue 9
Cumulonimbus Vertical Velocity Events in GATE. Part I: Diameter, Intensity and Mass Flux
journal, November 1980
- LeMone, Margaret A.; Zipser, Edward J.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 37, Issue 11
Cloud Feedbacks in the Climate System: A Critical Review
journal, January 2005
- Stephens, Graeme L.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 18, Issue 2
A Stochastic Mixing Model for Nonprecipitating Cumulus Clouds
journal, November 1986
- Raymond, David J.; Blyth, Alan M.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 43, Issue 22
Downdrafts in the near cloud environment of deep convective updrafts: Deep Convection Subsiding Shells
journal, January 2014
- Glenn, Ian B.; Krueger, Steven K.
- Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Simple approximations for condensational growth
journal, January 2009
- Kostinski, A. B.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Observational validation of the compensating mass flux through the shell around cumulus clouds
journal, January 2009
- Heus, Thijs; J. Pols, C. Freek; J. Jonker, Harm J.
- Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 135, Issue 638
Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law
journal, September 2005
- Newman, Mej
- Contemporary Physics, Vol. 46, Issue 5
Interaction of a Cumulus Cloud Ensemble with the Large-Scale Environment, Part I
journal, April 1974
- Arakawa, Akio; Schubert, Wayne Howard
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 31, Issue 3
A new convective cloud field model based on principles of self-organisation
journal, January 2005
- Nober, F. J.; Graf, H. F.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 5, Issue 10
Atmospheric Diffusion Shown on a Distance-Neighbour Graph
journal, April 1926
- Richardson, L. F.
- Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 110, Issue 756
Conditional Instability of the First Kind Upside-Down
journal, January 1980
- Randall, David A.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 37, Issue 1
Area-Perimeter Relation for Rain and Cloud Areas
journal, April 1982
- Lovejoy, S.
- Science, Vol. 216, Issue 4542
Subsiding Shells around Shallow Cumulus Clouds
journal, March 2008
- Heus, Thijs; Jonker, Harm J. J.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 65, Issue 3
Improvements of an Ice-Phase Microphysics Parameterization for Use in Numerical Simulations of Tropical Convection
journal, January 1995
- Krueger, Steven K.; Fu, Qiang; Liou, K. N.
- Journal of Applied Meteorology, Vol. 34, Issue 1
The Distribution of Cloud Horizontal Sizes
journal, September 2011
- Wood, Robert; Field, Paul R.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 24, Issue 18
Cloud macroscopic organization: order emerging from randomness
journal, January 2011
- Yuan, T.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 11, Issue 15
On the size distribution of cloud holes in stratocumulus and their relationship to cloud-top entrainment: ENTRAINMENT IN STRATOCUMLUS CLOUD HOLES
journal, May 2013
- Yamaguchi, Takanobu; Feingold, Graham
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 40, Issue 10
Methods for Estimating 2D Cloud Size Distributions from 1D Observations
journal, October 2017
- Romps, David M.; Vogelmann, Andrew M.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 74, Issue 10
Scaling laws predict global microbial diversity
journal, May 2016
- Locey, Kenneth J.; Lennon, Jay T.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, Issue 21
Interaction of a Cumulus Cloud Ensemble with the Large-Scale Environment. Part II
journal, December 1980
- Lord, Stephen J.; Arakawa, Akio
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 37, Issue 12
Thermodynamic control of anvil cloud amount
journal, July 2016
- Bony, Sandrine; Stevens, Bjorn; Coppin, David
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, Issue 32
Fluctuations in an Equilibrium Convective Ensemble. Part I: Theoretical Formulation
journal, August 2006
- Craig, George C.; Cohen, Brenda G.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 63, Issue 8
The Spherical Harmonics Discrete Ordinate Method for Three-Dimensional Atmospheric Radiative Transfer
journal, February 1998
- Evans, K. Franklin
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 55, Issue 3
Modes of growth in dynamic systems
journal, April 2012
- Garrett, Timothy J.
- Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 468, Issue 2145
Measurements of Turbulent Mixing and Subsiding Shells in Trade Wind Cumuli
journal, August 2014
- Katzwinkel, Jeannine; Siebert, Holger; Heus, Thijs
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 71, Issue 8
How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?
journal, August 2006
- Bony, Sandrine; Colman, Robert; Kattsov, Vladimir M.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 19, Issue 15
Modeling Entrainment and Finescale Mixing in Cumulus Clouds
journal, December 1997
- Krueger, Steven K.; Su, Chwen-Wei; McMurtry, Patrick A.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 54, Issue 23
Neuronal Oscillations in Cortical Networks
journal, June 2004
- Buzsaki, G.
- Science, Vol. 304, Issue 5679
Dynamics of the Cumulus Cloud Margin: An Observational Study
journal, December 2009
- Wang, Yonggang; Geerts, Bart; French, Jeffrey
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 66, Issue 12
First-Passage-Time Prototypes for Precipitation Statistics
journal, September 2014
- Stechmann, Samuel N.; Neelin, J. David
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 71, Issue 9
Size Distributions of Hydrometeors: Analysis with the Maximum Entropy Principle
journal, January 2016
- Yano, Jun-Ichi; Heymsfield, Andrew J.; Phillips, Vaughan T. J.
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 73, Issue 1