Contrasting Response of Precipitation to Aerosol Perturbation in the Tropics and Extratropics Explained by Energy Budget Considerations

Guy Dagan; Philip Stier; Duncan Watson-Parris

doi:10.1029/2019GL083479

Contrasting Response of Precipitation to Aerosol Perturbation in the Tropics and Extratropics Explained by Energy Budget Considerations

Guy Dagan^*, Philip Stier, Duncan Watson-Parris

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

Precipitation plays a crucial role in the Earth's energy balance, the water cycle, and the global atmospheric circulation. Aerosols, by direct interaction with radiation and by serving as cloud condensation nuclei, may affect clouds and rain formation. This effect can be examined in terms of energetic constraints, that is, any aerosol-driven diabatic heating/cooling of the atmosphere will have to be balanced by changes in precipitation, radiative fluxes, or divergence of dry static energy. Using an aqua-planet general circulation model (GCM), we show that tropical and extratropical precipitation have contrasting responses to aerosol perturbations. This behavior can be explained by contrasting ability of the atmosphere to diverge excess dry static energy in the two different regions. It is shown that atmospheric heating in the tropics leads to large-scale thermally driven circulation and a large increase in precipitation, while the excess energy from heating in the extratropics is constrained due to the effect of the Coriolis force, causing the precipitation to decrease.

Original language	American English
Pages (from-to)	7828-7837
Number of pages	10
Journal	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume	46
Issue number	13
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083479
State	Published - 16 Jul 2019
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) project constRaining the EffeCts of Aerosols on Precipitation (RECAP) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with grant agreement 724602. P. S. also acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. D. W. P. and P. S. additionally acknowledge funding from Natural Environment Research Council projects NE/L01355X/1 (CLARIFY) and NE/P013406/1 (A-CURE). The simulations were performed using the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service. We thank Raymond Pierrehumbert for very fruitful discussions during the preparation of this paper. All the data used in this publication can be found online (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3242319).

Funding Information:
This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) project constRaining the EffeCts of Aerosols on Precipitation (RECAP) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with grant agreement 724602. P. S. also acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. D. W. P. and P. S. additionally acknowledge funding from Natural Environment Research Council projects NE/L01355X/1 (CLARIFY) and NE/P013406/1 (A‐CURE). The simulations were performed using the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service. We thank Raymond Pierrehumbert for very fruitful discussions during the preparation of this paper. All the data used in this publication can be found online (https://doi.org/10.5281/ zenodo.3242319).

Publisher Copyright:
©2019. The Authors.

Keywords

aerosol
energy budget
extratropics
precipitation
tropics

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title = "Contrasting Response of Precipitation to Aerosol Perturbation in the Tropics and Extratropics Explained by Energy Budget Considerations",

abstract = "Precipitation plays a crucial role in the Earth's energy balance, the water cycle, and the global atmospheric circulation. Aerosols, by direct interaction with radiation and by serving as cloud condensation nuclei, may affect clouds and rain formation. This effect can be examined in terms of energetic constraints, that is, any aerosol-driven diabatic heating/cooling of the atmosphere will have to be balanced by changes in precipitation, radiative fluxes, or divergence of dry static energy. Using an aqua-planet general circulation model (GCM), we show that tropical and extratropical precipitation have contrasting responses to aerosol perturbations. This behavior can be explained by contrasting ability of the atmosphere to diverge excess dry static energy in the two different regions. It is shown that atmospheric heating in the tropics leads to large-scale thermally driven circulation and a large increase in precipitation, while the excess energy from heating in the extratropics is constrained due to the effect of the Coriolis force, causing the precipitation to decrease.",

keywords = "aerosol, energy budget, extratropics, precipitation, tropics",

author = "Guy Dagan and Philip Stier and Duncan Watson-Parris",

note = "Funding Information: This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) project constRaining the EffeCts of Aerosols on Precipitation (RECAP) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with grant agreement 724602. P. S. also acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. D. W. P. and P. S. additionally acknowledge funding from Natural Environment Research Council projects NE/L01355X/1 (CLARIFY) and NE/P013406/1 (A-CURE). The simulations were performed using the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service. We thank Raymond Pierrehumbert for very fruitful discussions during the preparation of this paper. All the data used in this publication can be found online (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3242319). Funding Information: This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) project constRaining the EffeCts of Aerosols on Precipitation (RECAP) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with grant agreement 724602. P. S. also acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. D. W. P. and P. S. additionally acknowledge funding from Natural Environment Research Council projects NE/L01355X/1 (CLARIFY) and NE/P013406/1 (A‐CURE). The simulations were performed using the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service. We thank Raymond Pierrehumbert for very fruitful discussions during the preparation of this paper. All the data used in this publication can be found online (https://doi.org/10.5281/ zenodo.3242319). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}2019. The Authors.",

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AU - Dagan, Guy

AU - Stier, Philip

AU - Watson-Parris, Duncan

N1 - Funding Information: This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) project constRaining the EffeCts of Aerosols on Precipitation (RECAP) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with grant agreement 724602. P. S. also acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. D. W. P. and P. S. additionally acknowledge funding from Natural Environment Research Council projects NE/L01355X/1 (CLARIFY) and NE/P013406/1 (A-CURE). The simulations were performed using the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service. We thank Raymond Pierrehumbert for very fruitful discussions during the preparation of this paper. All the data used in this publication can be found online (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3242319). Funding Information: This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) project constRaining the EffeCts of Aerosols on Precipitation (RECAP) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme with grant agreement 724602. P. S. also acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. D. W. P. and P. S. additionally acknowledge funding from Natural Environment Research Council projects NE/L01355X/1 (CLARIFY) and NE/P013406/1 (A‐CURE). The simulations were performed using the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service. We thank Raymond Pierrehumbert for very fruitful discussions during the preparation of this paper. All the data used in this publication can be found online (https://doi.org/10.5281/ zenodo.3242319). Publisher Copyright: ©2019. The Authors.

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Y1 - 2019/7/16

N2 - Precipitation plays a crucial role in the Earth's energy balance, the water cycle, and the global atmospheric circulation. Aerosols, by direct interaction with radiation and by serving as cloud condensation nuclei, may affect clouds and rain formation. This effect can be examined in terms of energetic constraints, that is, any aerosol-driven diabatic heating/cooling of the atmosphere will have to be balanced by changes in precipitation, radiative fluxes, or divergence of dry static energy. Using an aqua-planet general circulation model (GCM), we show that tropical and extratropical precipitation have contrasting responses to aerosol perturbations. This behavior can be explained by contrasting ability of the atmosphere to diverge excess dry static energy in the two different regions. It is shown that atmospheric heating in the tropics leads to large-scale thermally driven circulation and a large increase in precipitation, while the excess energy from heating in the extratropics is constrained due to the effect of the Coriolis force, causing the precipitation to decrease.

AB - Precipitation plays a crucial role in the Earth's energy balance, the water cycle, and the global atmospheric circulation. Aerosols, by direct interaction with radiation and by serving as cloud condensation nuclei, may affect clouds and rain formation. This effect can be examined in terms of energetic constraints, that is, any aerosol-driven diabatic heating/cooling of the atmosphere will have to be balanced by changes in precipitation, radiative fluxes, or divergence of dry static energy. Using an aqua-planet general circulation model (GCM), we show that tropical and extratropical precipitation have contrasting responses to aerosol perturbations. This behavior can be explained by contrasting ability of the atmosphere to diverge excess dry static energy in the two different regions. It is shown that atmospheric heating in the tropics leads to large-scale thermally driven circulation and a large increase in precipitation, while the excess energy from heating in the extratropics is constrained due to the effect of the Coriolis force, causing the precipitation to decrease.

KW - aerosol

KW - energy budget

KW - extratropics

KW - precipitation

KW - tropics

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DO - 10.1029/2019GL083479

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SN - 0094-8276

VL - 46

SP - 7828

EP - 7837

JO - Geophysical Research Letters

JF - Geophysical Research Letters

IS - 13

ER -

Contrasting Response of Precipitation to Aerosol Perturbation in the Tropics and Extratropics Explained by Energy Budget Considerations

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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