Tomassini, L. and Yang, G. (2022) Tropical moist convection as an important driver of Atlantic Hadley circulation variability. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 148 (748). pp. 3287-3302. ISSN 0035-9009
Abstract
The exact role of moist deep convection and associated latent heating in the tropical Hadley circulation has been debated for many years. This study investigates the connection between moist convection and the strength of the upper-level meridional circulation over the tropical Atlantic, focusing mainly on one particular boreal winter season. There is a close relationship between events of strong organised deep convection and enhanced meridional upper-level wind on many occasions. A process-based analysis of specific events suggests that moist convection impacts Hadley circulation variability on time-scales of days to months through equatorial wave dynamics. Equatorial waves play an important role, both directly by contributing to the Hadley circulation via their meridional wind component and also indirectly by triggering moist convection through low-level convergence. Specific Hadley circulation surge events, short-term, regionally confined intensifications of the upper-level meridional circulation, can be attributed to enhanced organised moist convection and equatorial wave activity in many cases, with implications for trade wind cloudiness. The findings thus elucidate how the mean Hadley circulation is shaped by and composed of temporally and spatially varying convection–circulation interactions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 Crown copyright and The Authors. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the Royal Meteorological Society. This article is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | convection–circulation coupling, equatorial waves, Hadley circulation, tropical convection |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mathematics (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Mar 2025 13:57 |
Last Modified: | 17 Mar 2025 16:01 |
Published Version: | https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/qj.4359 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:224495 |