KCM

First uploaded on 2023/02/10
Last updated on 2023/10/09
Copyright(C)2022-2023 jos <jos@kaleidoscheme.com> All rights reserved.

KCM stands for Kinematic Circulation Model. After extracting the RDC (Radiatively Driven Circulation) mechanism from the radiative-convective equilibrium atmosphere obtained by the DCM (Dynamical Convection Model), which explicitly treats convective processes, we thought that a similar equilibrium atmosphere could be reproduced by a model that includes RDC and completely eliminates dynamical transport. This is the KCM. At first, we had given the model a rather awkward name PRDCM (Pure-Radiatively Driven Circulation Model), but a very well-known climate researcher, who was a great help to us when we were writing our papers, gave us the cool name KCM, which well describes the nature of the model.

As we had hoped, KCM was able to produce an atmospheric structure very similar to that of DCM. Within the KCM, the cumulus cloud is merely a domain that provides the mass, heat, and water vapor required by the extracumulus atmosphere. The fact that the same results can be obtained without any dynamical transport as in the model with dynamical processes indicates that there is no need for dynamical transport such as Dynamical Detrainment, and that transport by RDC alone is sufficient. Furthermore, the behavior of the DCM and KCM atmospheres is consistent with each other when warming occurs.

See Iwasa et al. 2002 for the composition of the DCM and KCM, and Iwasa et al. 2004 for the atmospheric response to global warming.