Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: I present work on several topics related to land-atmosphere interaction and radiative-convective equilibrium: the first two research chapters invoke ideas related to land-atmosphere interaction to better understand radiative-convective equilibrium; the last two research chapters use the framework of radiative-convective equilibrium to better understand land-atmosphere interaction. First, I calculate how averaging the incident solar radiation can lead to biases in idealized climate models. I derive an expression for the absorption-weighted solar zenith angle, which minimizes the bias in mean absorbed shortwave radiation, and I find that it is closely matched by the insolation-weighted zenith angle. Common use of daytime-weighted zenith angle likely leads to high biases in albedo by ∼3%. Second, I explore the time scales of approach to radiative-convective equilibrium with both a simple linearized two-variable model, and a single-column model with full physics. I show that there is a long time scale of approach to radiative-convective
Author: Timothy W. Cronin
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2107421372