CliCCS Joint Working Group on the Drivers of Tropical Circulation

The tropics are the engine of the atmospheric general circulation, and their response to warming helps set Earth’s climate sensitivity. Our group aims to better understand the tropical heat budget, its link to the circulation system, and how these respond to warming. We focus on process understanding and the interplay between the tropical circulation and its different diabatic drivers such as radiation, microphysics, and surface fluxes. The understanding of the system’s sensitivity will be crucial in reducing the uncertainty in this globally important region - a prerequisite for more tightly constraining global climate sensitivity and hence the range of possible and plausible climate futures. The last topic is the core question of the cluster of excellence “Climate, climate change, and society” which the group is part of. The working group is a joint project between the University of Hamburg and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology.

Image: Bjorn Stevens