Chang et al. (2025) Resolution Dependence of Tropical Poleward Energy Transport in Aquaplanet GCMs

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-28
• Authors: Chiung‐Yin Chang, Pu Lin, Isaac M. Held, Timothy M. Merlis, Pablo Zurita‐Gotor
• DOI: 10.1029/2025ms005103

Research Groups

Not explicitly mentioned in the abstract, but involves atmospheric modeling groups developing and using high-resolution and lower-resolution atmospheric general circulation models.

Short Summary

This study benchmarks the resolution dependence of tropical poleward energy transport in two aquaplanet atmospheric general circulation models without convective parameterizations, finding that mean meridional circulation transport increases while transient eddy transport decreases with higher resolution, primarily due to changes in gross moist stability and explicit deep convection.

Objective

• To benchmark the resolution dependence of tropical poleward energy transport in two aquaplanet atmospheric general circulation models with disabled convective parameterizations.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: High-resolution model: 100 kilometers (100,000 meters) down to 6 kilometers (6,000 meters). Lower-resolution model: 300 kilometers (300,000 meters) down to 100 kilometers (100,000 meters).
• Temporal Scale: Not explicitly mentioned in the abstract, but implied to be climate-scale simulations (e.g., multi-year averages) given the focus on global circulation and energy transport.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Two aquaplanet atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) with disabled convective parameterizations:
  1. A nonhydrostatic high-resolution (100 km to 6 km) finite-volume cubed-sphere model with a full physics package.
  2. A lower-resolution (300 km to 100 km) hydrostatic spectral model with idealized moist physics.
• Data sources: Simulated data from the two atmospheric general circulation models.

Main Results

• Column-integrated poleward moist static energy transport by the mean meridional circulation increases with resolution in the deep tropics.
• Transport by transient eddies decreases with resolution.
• These changes are associated with enhanced gross moist stability, which switches from negative to positive.
• The enhanced gross moist stability is linked to an increasingly top-heavy mean circulation and reduced eddy activity diffusing water vapor along an unchanging mean moisture gradient.
• Extratropical baroclinic eddies and radiation are ruled out as primary drivers of these changes.
• The resolution dependence of both the mean meridional circulation and transient eddies appears to reflect the resolution dependence of tropical explicit (unparameterized) deep convection.

Contributions

• Provides a benchmark for the resolution dependence of tropical poleward energy transport in atmospheric general circulation models operating in convection-permitting regimes (disabled convective parameterizations).
• Demonstrates consistent resolution-dependent changes in moist static energy transport components (mean meridional circulation and transient eddies) across models with different physics and numerics.
• Identifies the role of enhanced gross moist stability and the resolution dependence of explicit deep convection as key mechanisms driving these changes.
• Offers insights for the development of theories and models of the tropical atmosphere, particularly concerning the representation of convection and its interaction with large-scale circulation.

Funding

Not mentioned in the abstract.

Citation

@article{Chang2025Resolution,
  author = {Chang, Chiung‐Yin and Lin, Pu and Held, Isaac M. and Merlis, Timothy M. and Zurita‐Gotor, Pablo},
  title = {Resolution Dependence of Tropical Poleward Energy Transport in Aquaplanet GCMs},
  journal = {Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025ms005103},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025ms005103}
}