Predator and Prey: A Minimum Recipe for the Transition from Steady to Oscillating Precipitation in Hothouse Climates

Abstract

In the present tropical atmosphere, precipitation typically exhibits noisy, small-amplitude fluctuations about an average. However, recent cloud-resolving simulations show that in a hothouse climate, precipitation can shift to a regime characterized by nonlinear oscillations. In this regime, intense precipitation events are separated by several dry days. This raises questions about what triggers the shift from a quasi-equilibrium state of precipitation to nonlinear precipitation oscillations and what factors determine the characteristics of these oscillations. To address these questions, we present a low-order model that includes two nonlinear ordinary differential equations, one for precipitation and the other for convective inhibition (CIN). Three processes govern the development of precipitation: a convective trigger that enhances precipitation, a self-limiting mechanism that reduces intense precipitation, and the effect of CIN in suppressing precipitation. On the other hand, CIN increases due to compensating subsidence from convection and decays exponentially over time due to radiation. A critical parameter in our model is the time-mean CIN (CIN*). As CIN* gradually increases, precipitation transitions from a quasi-equilibrium state to a nonlinear oscillation via a supercritical Hopf bifurcation. In the high CIN* limit, our model reduces to predator-prey dynamics, with CIN as the predator and precipitation as the prey. Here, the nonlinear oscillation's amplitude (maximum precipitation) grows with CIN*, and its period increases with the oscillation amplitude. A suite of cloud-resolving simulations corroborates these predictions from our low-order model, highlighting the effect of convective triggering and inhibition in regulating precipitation variability.