The Impact of Rotation on Tropical Climate, the Hydrologic Cycle, and Climate Sensitivity

Abstract

Abstract This work explores the impact of rotation on tropical convection and climate. As our starting point, we use the RCEMIP experiments as control simulations and run additional simulations with rotation. Compared to radiative convective equilibrium (RCE) experiments, rotating RCE (RRCE) experiments have a more stable and humid atmosphere with higher precipitation rates. The intensity of the overturning circulation decreases, water vapor is cycled through the troposphere at a slower rate, the subsidence fraction decreases, and the climate sensitivity increases. Several of these changes can be attributed to an increased flux of latent and sensible heat that results from an increase of near‐surface wind speed with rotation shortly after model initialization. The increased climate sensitivity results from changes of both the longwave cloud radiative effect and the longwave clear‐sky radiative fluxes. This work demonstrates the sensitivity of atmospheric humidity and surface fluxes of moisture and temperature to rotation.

Keywords

• tropical convection
• idealized modeling
• radiative convective equilibrium
• hydrologic cycle
• climate sensitivity