Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 110, Issue 13, Pages 4935-4940Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1213302110
Keywords
tropical precipitation; model biases; cloud radiative forcing; atmospheric energy transport; general circulation
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [ATM-0846641, ATM-0936059]
- Div Atmospheric & Geospace Sciences
- Directorate For Geosciences [0846641] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The double-Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) problem, in which excessive precipitation is produced in the Southern Hemisphere tropics, which resembles a Southern Hemisphere counterpart to the strong Northern Hemisphere ITCZ, is perhaps the most significant and most persistent bias of global climate models. In this study, we look to the extratropics for possible causes of the double-ITCZ problem by performing a global energetic analysis with historical simulations from a suite of global climate models and comparing with satellite observations of the Earth's energy budget. Our results show that models with more energy flux into the Southern Hemisphere atmosphere (at the top of the atmosphere and at the surface) tend to have a stronger double-ITCZ bias, consistent with recent theoretical studies that suggest that the ITCZ is drawn toward heating even outside the tropics. In particular, we find that cloud biases over the Southern Ocean explain most of the model-to-model differences in the amount of excessive precipitation in Southern Hemisphere tropics, and are suggested to be responsible for this aspect of the double-ITCZ problem in most global climate models.
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