4.7 Article

Radiative Impacts of Low-Level Clouds on the Summertime Subtropical High in the South Indian Ocean Simulated in a Coupled General Circulation Model

Journal

JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
Volume 34, Issue 10, Pages 3991-4007

Publisher

AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0709.1

Keywords

Indian Ocean; Anticyclones; Atmosphere-ocean interaction; Clouds; Subtropics

Funding

  1. Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) through theArctic Challenge for Sustainability (ArCS-II)
  2. Japan Science and Technology Agency through Belmont Forum CRA InterDec''
  3. Japanese Ministry of Environment through Environment Research and Technology Development Fund [JMEERF20192004]
  4. Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) [JP18H01278, JP19H05702, JP19H05703, 6102, 20H01970]
  5. Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [20H01970] Funding Source: KAKEN

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The study reveals that low-level clouds play a crucial role in reinforcing the summertime Mascarene high by affecting sea surface temperature, forming a tight positive feedback system with the subtropical high.
Over the south Indian Ocean, the coupled system of the subtropical Mascarene high and low-level clouds exhibits marked seasonality. To investigate this seasonality, the present study assesses radiative impacts of low-level clouds on the summertime Mascarene high with a coupled general circulation model. Comparison between a fully coupled control simulation and a no-low-cloud simulation, where the radiative effects of low-level clouds are artificially turned off, demonstrates that they act to reinforce the Mascarene high. Their impacts are so significant that the summertime Mascarene high almost disappears in the no-low-cloud experiment, suggesting their essential role in the existence of the summertime Mascarene high. As the primary mechanism, lowered sea surface temperature by the cloud albedo effect suppresses deep convective precipitation, inducing a Matsuno-Gill type response that reinforces the high, as verified through an atmospheric dynamical model diagnosis. Associated reduction of high-top clouds, as well as increased low-level clouds, augments in-atmosphere radiative cooling, which further reinforces the high. The present study reveals that low-level clouds constitute a tight positive feedback system with the subtropical high via sea surface temperature over the summertime south Indian Ocean.

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