Temperature–Moisture Dependence of the Deep Convective Transition as a Constraint on Entrainment in Climate Models

Abstract Properties of the transition to strong deep convection, as previously observed in satellite precipitation statistics, are analyzed using parcel stability computations and a convective plume velocity equation. A set of alternative entrainment assumptions yields very different characteristics of the deep convection onset boundary (here measured by conditional instability and plume vertical velocity) in a bulk temperature–water vapor thermodynamic plane. In observations the threshold value of column water vapor above which there is a rapid increase in precipitation, referred to as the critical value, increases with temperature, but not as quickly as column saturation, and this can be matched only for cases with sufficiently strong entrainment. This corroborates the earlier hypothesis that entraining plumes can explain this feature seen in observations, and it places bounds on the lower-tropospheric entrainment. Examination of a simple interactive entrainment scheme in which a minimum turbulent entrainment is enhanced by a dynamic entrainment (associated with buoyancy-induced vertical acceleration) shows that the deep convection onset curve is governed by the prescribed minimum entrainment. Results from a 0.5° resolution version of the Community Climate System Model, whose convective parameterization includes substantial entrainment, yield a reasonable match to satellite observations in several respects. Temperature–water vapor dependence is seen to agree well with the plume calculations and with offline simulations performed using the convection scheme of the model. These findings suggest that the convective transition characteristics, including the onset curve in the temperature–water vapor plane, can provide a substantial constraint for entrainment assumptions used in climate model deep convective parameterizations.