ACINN Graduate Seminar - WS 2023/24

2023-11-15 at 12:00 (on-line and on-site)

Aquaplanet monsoons: Dynamics and energetics of their maintenance and their response to climate changes

Simona Bordoni

University of Trento, Italy

 

Modelling work in the past two decades has showed how monsoons can be simulated even in aquaplanet configurations that lack any land-sea contrast, provided that the heat capacity of the lower boundary is small enough to allow for rapid adjustments of the surface fluxes to the seasonally varying insolation forcing. This line of investigation has contributed to the emergence of a novel theoretical view of monsoons as regionally localized seasonally migrating cross-equatorial Hadley circulations, rather than continental-scale sea breezes. In this talk, I will review the theoretical progress made, with a specific emphasis on the constraints  on the tropical circulation, and associated convergenze zones, provided by the momentum and energy budgets. I will also discuss how these constraints help isolate fundamental mechanisms that, implicated in the response of aquaplanet monsoons to climate changes, might also be at play in both more comprehensive simulations and observations.

 

 

 

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