Morphological Regimes of Rotating Moist Convection

Abstract Moist convection is a physical process in planetary atmospheres where the latent heat released by condensation acts as a buoyancy source that can enhance or even trigger an overturning convective instability. Since the saturation temperature often decreases with height, condensation releases latent heat preferentially in regions of upflow. Due to this inhomogeneous heat source, moist convection may be more sensitive to changes in flow morphology, such as those induced by rotation, than dry Rayleigh–Bénard convection. In rotating systems, like Jupiter’s weather layer, the effects of rotation on moist convection may be significant. In order to study the effects of rotation on flows driven by latent heat release, we present a suite of numerical simulations that solve the Rainy–Bénard equations. We identify three morphological regimes: a cellular regime and a plume regime broadly analogous to those found in rotating Rayleigh–Bénard convection, and a novel funnel regime found at Rossby numbers appropriate for Jupiter’s weather layer that lacks a clear analog within the regimes exhibited by dry convection. We measure energy fluxes through the system and report rotational scalings of the Reynolds and moist Nusselt numbers. We find that moist static energy transport, as measured by a moist Nusselt number, is significantly enhanced in the funnel regime without a corresponding enhancement in Reynolds number, indicating that this funnel regime produces structures with more favorable correlations between the temperature and vertical velocity.