Data - The Unreasonable Efficiency of Total Rain Evaporation Removal in Triggering Convective Self-Aggregation

This repository contains the data, scripts, SAM codes and files required to reproduce the results of the manuscript "The Unreasonable Efficiency of Total Rain Evaporation Removal in Triggering Convective Self-Aggregation" submitted to the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).

Brief description of project

This project aims to examine the impact of rain evaporation removal or reduction in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) on convective self aggregation (CSA). Non-rotating radiative-convective equilibrium (RCE) simulations were conducted with the System for Atmospheric Modeling (SAM) cloud resolving model. Rain evaporation in the lowest 1 km was progressively reduced and the effect on CSA was investigated. The physical processes underlying this type of aggregation (referred to in the manuscript as no-evaporation CSA, or NE-CSA) were analyzed and described. 

The default SAM code base (version 6.10.8) can be downloaded from here: http://rossby.msrc.sunysb.edu/~marat/SAM.html

Repository structure

• /SAM6.10.8 directory: contains the SAM fortran code and run time files required to conduct the simulations described in the manuscript
  • /SAM6.10.8/SRC: contains the modified fortran code to run the experiments where rain evaporation was removed or reduced
  • /SAM6.10.8/RCE_MM: contains the run time files required to run the RCE experiments
• /data directory: contains the model output data, in csv format
  • /data/pw: contains data for the spatial snapshot of precipitable water 
  • /data/cold_pools: contains data for the virtual potential temperature anomaly on 1st model level as proxy for cold pools
  • /data/MSE_streamfunction: contains data for plotting the MSE and streamfunction plot
  • /data/thetav_timeseries: contains the timeseries data for virtual potential temperature, potential temperature and water vapor anomalies (deviation from domain mean) for buoyancy analyses
  • /data/qrad_profile: contains data for the vertical profiles of the steady state radiative cooling rates
  • /data/wsub_timeseries: contains timeseries data for the subsidence (vertical velocity) in the dry regions, averaged over lowest 1, 2, 3 and 5 km
  • /data/agg_index_timeseries: contains timeseries data for the aggregation index, measured using two indices: variance of precipitable water divided by mean ("org_pw"), and variance of column relative humidity ("crh_var")
  • /data/thetav_profile: contains data for the vertical profiles of virtual potential temperature, potential temperature and water vapor anomalies averaged over five separate days 
• /scripts directory: contains the scripts required to plot all figures in the manuscript
  • plot_cold_pools_pw.py: script to plot Figure 1 (RCE mean state PW and cold pools)
  • plot_MSE_streamfunction.py: script to plot Figure 2 (MSE and streamfunction averaged over final 5 days)
  • plot_thetav_timeseries.py: script to plot Figure 3 (\(\theta^{'}_{v}\), \(\theta^{'}\)and \(q_{v}^{'}\) timeseries for aggregated and scattered cases)
  • plot_qrad_profiles_wsub_timeseries.py: script to plot Figure 4 (steady state radiative cooling profiles and \(\overline{w}_{sub,PBL}\) timeseries)
  • SI_plot_agg_index_timeseries.py: script to plot Figure S1 (aggregation index timeseries)
  • SI_plot_thetav_profiles.py: script to plot Figure S2 (\(\theta^{'}_{v}\), \(\theta^{'}\)and \(q_{v}^{'}\) profiles on five separate days)
  • SI_plot_thetav_timeseries.py: script to plot Figures S3 and S4 (\(\theta^{'}_{v}\), \(\theta^{'}\)and \(q_{v}^{'}\) timeseries for additional \(\alpha\)values, for aggregated and scattered cases)
  • /scripts/applications directory: contains the utilities script that include helper functions for the plotting scripts