EESCGR5400 Fall 2021 - DYNAMICS of CLIMATE VARIABILITY & CHANGE

Homework 4 - Orders of Magnitude

The aim of this homework is to make you familiar with the magnitude of the effects we are
discussing in class, and in particular with the way in which fast weather processes interact with
the slow features that we call climate and take care of “adjustments to equilibrium”.

You have already studied the energy budget at the top of the atmosphere and at the surface.
You are familiar with the concepts of radiation, of albedo (the fraction of radiation reflected
away), and of latent heat of evaporation and condensation. You have also already discussed
how moist convection is distributing heat in the vertical. Now we are going to get a feeling for
how much energy is involved in the everyday phenomena that make up the hydrologic cycle in
the Tropics. To do that, you’ll just have to remember some basic definitions from the beginning
of the class [density (Kg/m3), energy (J), power (W=J/s), energy flux (W/m2)] and let
dimensional analysis help you!
1. Latent Energy: orders of magnitude [2pts each, 12 pts total]
a) How much energy does it take to evaporate 1mm of water from a unit surface of
the tropical ocean? The latent heat of vaporization for surface temperatures in
the warm tropics is 2.4x106JKg-1 (Note that 1mm of water spread over a surface
of 1m2 is a volume of 10-3m3 ; use a water density of 1000Kg/m3)

b) What is the radiative flux (in W/m2) required to evaporate 1mm of water from a
unit surface of the ocean over the course of one day?

c) If all the absorbed incoming solar energy goes into evaporating water from the
ocean surface, what is the maximum evaporation rate (in mm/day) for the
average sunny day in the Tropics (STOA = S/4 = 300W/m2 ; ocean albedo = 0.1).

d) What is the maximum evaporation below the clouds of the ITCZ? (look at the
albedo in this map:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Ceres_2003_2004_clea
r_sky_total_sky_albedo.png)

e) There are many reasons why nuking a hurricane is a bad idea (NOAA explains in
its FAQ!). One such reason is that the average hurricane is a lot more energetic
than our bombs. How much energy is released as latent heat in an average
hurricane? Remember that the latent heat of condensation is the same as the
latent heat of vaporization! This means that you can use what you have learned
in the first part of this problem to calculate the energy associated with the rain of
a storm. Assume a rainfall rate of 15mm/day, a duration of 1day, and a storm
radius of 700km. Compare this number to a typical nuclear bomb (yielding 4TJ).
 EESCGR5400 Fall 2021 - DYNAMICS of CLIMATE VARIABILITY & CHANGE

f) What is the latent energy associated with the rain that hurricane Harvey dumped
over Houston? (from figure 9 in
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092017_Harvey.pdf, assume an area of
120x80 miles and an average rainfall of 30 inches; remember your conversion to
the SI system!)

In class, we have discussed the difference between the mean large scale ascent in the planetary
circulation and how that is the result of a “statistical equilibrium” of convective motions at
much smaller scale. For this to work out, the time scales must also match: convection must be
fast coming and fast going, while the large-scale motion must be slow enough to average out
these convective fluctuations and retain only the large-scale ascent. Let’s check this out by
plugging in some numbers for the typical velocities in convective updrafts and large-scale
ascent.
2. Convective and large-scale ascent: orders of magnitude [2pts each, 4 pts total]
a) Convective updrafts in intense tropical storms have typical upward velocities of
5m/s. How long would it take for a plume moving at such speed to cover the
distance from the surface to the height of the tropical tropopause?

b) Falling rain drags down air in downdrafts that nearly compensate for the upward
mass transport in updrafts, so that the large-scale vertical velocity in the ITCZ is
on the order of 0.01m/s. Given the compensation by falling rain, what is the time
scale for the overturning of the Hadley cell?

We think of tropical regions as very rainy and very moist. How can both things be true at the
same time, if rainfall removes moisture from the atmosphere? There must be a continuous
source of moisture! What you are going to find out in this problem is that episodic convection
can dry out its column of atmosphere quite fast, but the ITCZ as a whole is kept fueled by the
large-scale circulation, and its slow and steady supply of water vapor.
3. Moisture adjustment scales: orders of magnitude [2pts each, 8 pts total]
a) Tropical rainfall occurs within an envelope of high atmospheric moisture, which
is measured as the column-integrated moisture or precipitable water. From the
lecture slides or from Climate Reanalyzer (
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/animations/), find a reasonable value for the
maximum value of precipitable water and for the threshold that best
corresponds to the ITCZ envelope. Use these numbers and a typical rainfall rate
for the ITCZ to calculate a time scale for depletion of moisture by rain. How does
this time scale compare to the convective time scale from Problem #2?

b) How does it compare to the time scale of the ITCZ movement?

c) What does this tell you about the source of moisture for the ITCZ?
 EESCGR5400 Fall 2021 - DYNAMICS of CLIMATE VARIABILITY & CHANGE

d) Consider now the evaporative fluxes that you calculated in #1(d) and the
overturning time scale of the Hadley circulation you calculated in 2(b). How
much moisture does the converging wind bring from the ITCZ? Is there a
moisture limitation for the Hadley Cell?

We have stressed how the tropical atmosphere cannot sustain strong temperature differences,
and how waves adjust the temperature to a Weak Temperature Gradient (approximately). To
give you a sense of how efficient these waves are, let’s compare how long it takes to cross an
ocean basin with the wind and with the waves.
4. Temperature adjustment scales: orders of magnitude [2pts each, 4 pts total]
a) Go to https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/animations/ and pick a value for the
average wind speed in the region of the trade winds. Calculate the time it takes
the wind to cross the length of the Pacific at that speed.

b) Compare the crossing time scale for the wind to that obtained for an
atmospheric internal gravity wave (recall that the propagation speed for dry
waves is between 20 and 80m/s).

5. Compare and contrast the thermally direct circulation that develops near Borneo in
response to the diurnal heating of the island, versus the energetically direct circulation
that develops over Southeast Asia in response to the summertime heating of the
Northern Hemisphere. [4pts]