5–7 May 2021
virtual
Europe/Copenhagen timezone

Conceptualizing diurnal surface warming in the tropical ocean

5 May 2021, 16:00
1h 45m
virtual

virtual

Interactive presentation Modelling and Parameterising Deep Convective Organisation Modelling and Parameterising Deep Convective Organisation

Speaker

Reyk Börner (Atmospheric Complexity, Niels Bohr Institute)

Description

Which processes cause and maintain convective organization in the tropics? Recent cloud-resolving simulations indicate that, compared to studies performed under radiative convective equilibrium, a diurnally varying boundary surface substantially changes the spatiotemporal patterns of convection. To better understand feedbacks between the atmosphere and an interactive ocean requires an accurate description of diurnal warming at the sea surface. Here we present an idealized, one-dimensional model of radiative transfer in the upper 10 meters of the ocean, forced by solar insolation and atmospheric conditions. Unlike comparable models, we treat turbulent mixing as simple diffusion combined with a second linear mixing term. This retains conceptual simplicity while resolving important processes such as wind-driven mixing, near-surface heat trapping, and skin cooling. A comparison with observations shows that the model produces key features of real diurnal temperature profiles. In turn, our results cast light on which conditions may facilitate strong diurnal surface warming of 3K and more.

Primary author

Reyk Börner (Atmospheric Complexity, Niels Bohr Institute)

Co-authors

Romain Fiévet (Atmospheric Complexity, Niels Bohr Institute) Jan Haerter (Atmospheric Complexity, Niels Bohr Institute)

Presentation materials