Title: "Response of tropical precipitation and atmospheric circulations to orbital precession"

Abstract: Motivated by paleoclimate, I present the results of idealized atmospheric general circulation model simulations designed to understand how tropical precipitation and atmospheric circulations respond to the precession of the perihelion. In particular, the relevant climate nonlinearity that rectifies the seasonal insolation changes to give rise to annual-mean precipitation changes is assessed. The simulated monsoon-season Hadley circulation changes can be opposite to what would be expected based on prevailing ideas (e.g., weaker mass flux with stronger insolation and surface temperature gradients). The changes can be understood, however, by considering the constraint that the moist static energy budget imposes on the atmospheric circulation's response to radiative perturbations.


Speaker's website: http://www.princeton.edu/~tmerlis/
Host: Daniela Domeisen
Faculty host: Paul O'Gorman