Drivers of the mean biases of the tropical atmospheric circulation in a moist static energy framework

Abstract In this study, we apply the moist static energy for first baroclinic mode (MSEB) model to examine the drivers of the mean tropical atmospheric circulation biases over oceanic regions. The model diagnoses the vertical motion in an air column of the tropical regions based on net energy heat flux and advection of moisture or heat into the air column in relation to the stability of the air column due to the gradients in moist static energy. Analysis of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) and Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) simulations helped to identified errors intrinsic to the atmospheric models or errors due to atmosphere–ocean coupling process. Despite some limitations of the MSEB model, our multi-model mean analysis over the entire tropical ocean reveals that the primary drivers of the tropical circulation biases mostly result from intrinsic atmospheric model errors in top of the atmosphere longwave radiation and surface latent heats fluxes, suggesting a link to biases in the hydrological cycle. Oceanic coupling significantly enhanced some of the biases. Biases in the advection of moist static energy also play an important role, while biases in the gross moist stability profiles play only a minor role. Further, we examine the inter-model variations in four main regional large-scale biases (double-ITCZ, Pacific cold tongue, southward shift of ITCZ over the Atlantic, and dipole bias over the Indian Ocean). The analysis suggests that regional bias patterns across general circulation models are primarily driven by coupling errors, except for the bias in the Indian Ocean, which is intrinsic to the atmospheric model but amplified by coupling. Notably, longwave radiation biases at the top of the atmosphere are prevalent among the four bias patterns, as well as biases in moisture advection over the Atlantic. Our results underscore the significant role of net longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere, an aspect not sufficiently emphasized in previous studies.