Abstract
Abstract. On short timescales, the effect of deep convection on the tropical atmosphere is to heat the upper troposphere and cool the lower troposphere. This stratiform temperature response to deep convection gives rise to a local maximum in stability near the melting level. We use temperature measurements from five radiosonde stations in the Western Tropical Pacific, from the Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate (SPARC) archive, to examine the response of this mid-tropospheric stability maximum to changes in surface temperature. We find that the height of the stability maximum increases when the surface temperature increases, by an amount roughly equal to the upward displacement of the 0 °C melting level. Although this response was determined using monthly mean temperature anomalies from an 10 yr record (1999–2008), we use model results to show that a similar response should also be expected on longer timescales.
Highlights
The climatological temperature profile in the tropics exhibits three regions of enhanced stability: the top of the boundary layer (∼2 km), the melting level (∼5 km), and the tropopause (∼16 km)
The mid-tropospheric stability maximum is an important aspect of the climatological temperature structure of the tropics, especially in actively convecting regions
We have shown that high rain events impose a stratiform type temperature response on the background atmosphere, characterized by heating in the upper troposphere and cooling in the lower troposphere
Summary
The climatological temperature profile in the tropics exhibits three regions of enhanced stability: the top of the boundary layer (∼2 km), the melting level (∼5 km), and the tropopause (∼16 km). High rain events in the trop- lower troposphere They often suffer from instrumenics are associated with the outward propagation of a warm tal biases which introduce uncertainties into the calculation. The dashed gray curve is the lapse rate of a warmed temperature profile subjected to a 1 ◦C increase in near surface temperature, as described in the text. The horizontal bars denote the approximate It was derived from a slope of a scatterplot, at each height, of the heights of the melting level in the background and warmed atmo- monthly mean pressure anomaly against the monthly mean near surspheresF. The horizontal bars denote the approximate surface temperature It was derived from a slope of a scatterplot, at each height, of the mont heights of the melting level in the background and warmed atmospherseos.cSiauatnrefoadmcaewlywitaahgramihniisngtgthhiespmarseosnsotshculiyaretmeedaanwnonitmeharaasluirefsacae ltoemftp,erraetularetiavneomtoalyp. It was derived from a slope of a scatterplot, at each height, of the mont heights of the melting level in the background and warmed atmospherseos.cSiauatnrefoadmcaewlywitaahgramihniisngtgthhiespmarseosnsotshculiyaretmeedaanwnonitmeharaasluirefsacae ltoemftp,erraetularetiavneomtoalyp. resshift in the lapse rate profile to a higher altitude, by an amount roughlysueqrueasl otonthtehedisspalmaceemheenitgihntthseumrfealctiengoutside the radiosonde re-
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