Driving mechanisms for subsiding shells in simulations of deep moist convection

Mulhern, Quinlan R.; Peters, John M.; Mulholland, Jake P.

doi:10.5194/acp-26-13959-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-13959-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-13959-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 19

Research article

|

06 Oct 2026

Research article |

| 06 Oct 2026

Driving mechanisms for subsiding shells in simulations of deep moist convection

Quinlan R. Mulhern, John M. Peters, and Jake P. Mulholland

Data sets

CM1 Simulation Setup Quinlan Mulhern and John Peters https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30032242

Model code and software

Pressure Decomposition Script John Peters and Quinlan Mulhern https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30179989

Simulation Analysis Scripts (.ipynb files) Quinlan Mulhern https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30032422

Compositing Code Quinlan Mulhern https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30032398

Short summary

Thunderstorms redistribute air throughout the lowest layer of the atmosphere. One way in which this occurs is when air descends around the edges of clouds, known as a subsiding shell. By studying computer simulations, we found that the shells were formed by droplets evaporating at the cloud edge and air being forced downward at cloud top by pressure differences. Larger pressure differences and accelerations were found in the dry environment because updrafts were stronger in that simulation.