Organized Tropical Convection in a High-Order Finite-Volume GCM Dynamical Framework with Adaptive Mesh Refinement

A hallmark feature of many tropical weather disturbances is the multiscale interaction between moist convection and dynamics. The structure and behavior of simulated planetary-scale tropical disturbances, including the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), are sensitive to the representation of subgrid-scale moist convection in global climate models (GCMs). This sensitivity, coupled with the challenge of accurately representing cumulus processes, contributes to poor simulations of the MJO in many current GCMs. We investigate the multiscale nature of tropical convection using a recently developed GCM framework that incorporates a high-order finite-volume dynamical core, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), and moist physics parameterizations from the Community Atmosphere Model. We present preliminary results from global aquaplanet simulations in which a high-resolution grid patch is applied to equatorial regions to better represent organized tropical convective processes and possibly MJO-like disturbances.