Numerical modeling of atmospheric water content and probability evaluation. Part I

A numerical simulation of tropical atmosphere in radiative convective equilibrium has been carried out and water data in different phases have been analyzed. 3D data have been averaged in space and time using as energy variable to sort them the moist static energy, that is conserved for a moist atmosphere during adiabatic fluid parcel displacements. The block averaged MSE gives a measure of the moisture flux that is dominating at statistical equilibrium triggering strong convection. MSE block vertical integrals, that give a measure of humidity going from dry to moist columns, are used to sort block integrals of variables. If the distribution of rainfall and precipitable water is analyzed using this technique, a correspondence between the moisture flux and total precipitable water (TPW) variability is found. The associated aggregation of precipitation rate is analyzed and different statistical behavior of moist and dry regions of the atmosphere is found. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.