Preliminary evaluation of a revised Zhang-McFarlane convection scheme using the NCAR CCM3 GCM

This study investigates the interaction between convection, clouds, and the large-scale circulation. By examining the sensitivity of the large-scale fields to a modification of the convective parameterization scheme in the NCAR CCM3, we show that the convective parameterization has a strong impact on the temporal characteristics of the large-scale circulation and clouds. When Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) in the atmosphere is used to close the convective parameterization, the simulated convection is continuous, and lacks the observed intermittence. When the CAPE change due to the large-scale forcing in the free troposphere is used, the simulated temporal behavior of convection is in much better agreement with the observations. We attribute this improvement to the enhanced coupling between convection and the large-scale forcing in the convective parameterization.