Understanding Controlling Factors of Extratropical Humidity and Clouds with an Idealized General Circulation Model.

This paper examines the physical controls of extratropical humidity and clouds by isolating the effects of cloud physics factors in an idealized model. The Held–Suarez dynamical core is used with the addition of passive water vapor and cloud tracers, allowing cloud processes to be explored cleanly. Separate saturation adjustment and full cloud scheme controls are used to consider the strength of advection–condensation theory. Three sets of perturbations to the cloud scheme are designed to test the model’s sensitivity to the physics of condensation, sedimentation, and precipitation formation. The condensation and sedimentation perturbations isolate two key differences between the control cases. First, the sub-grid-scale relative humidity distribution assumed for the cloud macrophysics influences the location and magnitude of the extratropical cloud maxima, which interrupt the isentropic transport of moisture to the polar troposphere. Second, within the model’s explicit treatment of cloud microphysics, re-evaporation of hydrometeors moistens and increases clouds in the lower troposphere. In contrast, microphysical processes of precipitation formation (specifically, the ratio of accretion to autoconversion) have negligible effects on humidity, cloudiness, and precipitation apart from the strength of the largescale condensation and formation cycle. In addition, counterintuitive relationships}such as cloud condensate and cloud fraction responding in opposing directions}emphasize the need for careful dissection of physical mechanisms. In keeping with advection–condensation theory, circulation sets the patterns of humidity, clouds, and precipitation to first order, with factors explored herein providing secondary controls. The results substantiate the utility of such idealized modeling and highlight key cloud processes to constrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]