The role of shallow convection in promoting the northward propagation of boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation

Abstract

By conducting idealized experiments in a general circulation model (GCM) and in a toy theoretical model, we test the hypothesis that shallow convection (SC) is responsible for explaining why the boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO) prefers propagating northward. Two simulations are performed using ECHAM4, with the control run using a standard detrainment rate of SC and the sensitivity run turning off the detrainment rate of SC. These two simulations display dramatically different BSISO characteristics. The control run simulates the realistic northward propagation (NP) of the BSISO, while the sensitivity run with little SC only simulates stationary signals. In the sensitivity run, the meridional asymmetries of vorticity and humidity fields are simulated under the monsoon vertical wind shear (VWS); thus, the frictional convergence can be excited to the north of the BSISO. However, the lack of SC makes the lower and middle troposphere very dry, which prohibits further development of deeper convection. A theoretical BSISO model is also constructed, and the result shows that SC is a key to convey the asymmetric vorticity effect to induce the BSISO to move northward. Thus, both the GCM and theoretical model results demonstrate the importance of SC in promoting the NP of the BSISO.