Abrupt transitions in an atmospheric single-column model  with weak temperature gradient approximation

Stephens, Benjamin A.; Jackson, Charles S.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-389-2020

Articles | Volume 1, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-389-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-389-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 1, issue 2

Research article

|

14 Aug 2020

Research article |

| 14 Aug 2020

Abrupt transitions in an atmospheric single-column model with weak temperature gradient approximation

Benjamin A. Stephens and Charles S. Jackson

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Final revised paper (published on 14 Aug 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 23 Mar 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of Stephens and Jackson (2020)', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Apr 2020
RC2: 'review', Anonymous Referee #2, 22 Apr 2020
AC1: 'Responses to referee comments', Benjamin Stephens, 04 Jun 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Benjamin Stephens on behalf of the Authors (01 Jul 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (16 Jul 2020) by Sebastian Schemm

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (21 Jul 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (27 Jul 2020)

ED: Publish as is (01 Aug 2020) by Sebastian Schemm

Short summary

We analyze abrupt transitions between tropical rainfall regimes in a single-column model (SCM) of the tropical atmosphere. Multiple equilibria have been observed before in SCMs, but here we analyze actual bifurcations. We attribute the transitions to a sudden loss of evaporative cooling in the lower column due to nonlinearities in microphysics. This study may have implications for atmospheric dynamics more broadly but also for understanding abrupt transitions in paleoclimate.