Explaining Precipitation Clusters
The top left figure shows convective cloud patterns produced by an intermediate-complexity stochastic model for convective organization (Ahmed and Neelin 2019). This model can also generate “convective aggregation” if the radiative feedbacks are too strong. The top right panel shows connections between cloud clustering and a stochastic branching process.
Climate phenomena are generated by complex processes involving several variables. This complexity impedes understanding and diagnosis of climate models. A popular approach is to build simpler models of the phenomena of interest. These intermediate complexity models (ICMs) aim to capture the phenomena of interest by distilling the essential physics into fewer variables. The Climate System Interactions group has a long history of using ICMs to study phenomena ranging from long timescale inter-annual ENSO variability (Jin and Neelin 199x) to tropical climate (Neelin and Zeng 2000, Su et al. 200x) to short time scale precipitation distributions (Stechmann and Neelin 2011,2014).
Related Papers
Ji X, Neelin JD, Lee S-K, Mechoso CR. Interhemispheric teleconnections from tropical heat sources in intermediate and simple models. J. Climate; 27 :684-697, doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00017.1, 2014.
Perigaud CM, Cassou C, DeWitte B, Fu L-L, Neelin JD. Using data and intermediate coupled models for seasonal-to-interannual forecasts. Mon. Wea. Rev. 2000;128 :3025-3049.
Lin JW-B, Neelin JD, Zeng N. Maintenance of tropical intraseasonal variability in an intermediate-complexity atmospheric model, in Proceedings of the CLIVAR/GEWEX COARE98 Conference. Boulder, Colorado: World Climate Research Programme ; 1998 :179–180.
Chou C, Neelin JD. Cloudiness and radiation parameterizations for intermediate tropical atmospheric models, in Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on Climate Variations (Climate 7). Long Beach, California: Amer. Met. Soc. ; 1997 :253–256.
Chou C, Neelin JD. Linearization of a long-wave radiation scheme for intermediate tropical atmospheric models. J. Geophys. Res. 1996;101 :15129-15145.
Dijkstra HA, Neelin JD. On the attractors of an intermediate coupled equatorial ocean-atmosphere model. Dyn. Atm. Oceans. 1995;22 :19-48.
Battisti D, Neelin JD. Coupled model simulations: Simple and intermediate models, in JSC/CCCO TOGA Numerical Experimentation Group. Report of the Second Session. Geneva: World Climate Research Programme ; 1989 :6-9.