Horizontally Homogeneous Rotating Radiative–Convective Equilibria at GCM Resolution

Rotating radiative–convective equilibrium, using the column physics and resolution of GCMs, is proposed as a useful framework for studying the tropical storm–like vortices produced by global models. These equilibria are illustrated using the column physics and dynamics of a version of the GFDL Atmospheric Model 2 (AM2) at resolutions of 220, 110, and 55 km in a large 2 10 km square horizontally homogeneous domain with fixed sea surface temperature and uniform Coriolis parameter. The large domain allows a number of tropical storms to exist simultaneously. Once equilibrium is attained, storms often persist for hundreds of days. The number of storms decreases as sea surface temperatures increase, while the average intensity increases. As the background rotation is decreased, the number of storms also decreases. At these resolutions and with this parameterization of convection, a dense collection of tropical storms is always the end state of moist convection in the cases examined.