Characteristics of gravity waves from convection and implications for their parameterization in global circulation models

Characteristic properties of gravity waves from convection over the continental United States are derived from idealized high-resolution numerical simulations. In a unique modeling approach, waves are forced by a realistic thermodynamic source based on observed precipitation data. The square of the precipitation rate and the gravity wave momentum fluxes both show lognormal occurrence distributions, with long tails of extreme events. Convectively generated waves can give forces in the lower stratosphere that at times rival orographic wave forcing. Throughout the stratosphere, zonal forces due to convective wave drag are much stronger than accounted for by current gravity wave drag parameterizations, so their contribution to the summer branch of the stratospheric Brewer-Dobson circulation is in fact much larger than models predict. A comparison of these forces to previous estimates of the total drag implies that convectively generated gravity waves are a primary source of summer-hemisphere stratospheric wave drag. Furthermore, intermittency and strength of the zonal forces due to convective gravity wave drag in the lower stratosphere resemble analysis increments, suggesting that a more realistic representation of these waves may help alleviate model biases on synoptic scales. The properties of radar precipitation and gravity waves seen in this study lead to a proposed change for future parameterization methods that would give more realistic drag forces in the stratosphere without compromising mesospheric gravity wave drag.