Prognostic modeling of total specific humidity variance induced by shallow convective clouds in a GCM

d'Alençon, Louis; Hourdin, Frédéric; Rio, Catherine

doi:10.5194/acp-26-7949-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-7949-2026

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-7949-2026

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

Articles | Volume 26, issue 11

Research article

|

10 Jun 2026

Research article |

| 10 Jun 2026

Prognostic modeling of total specific humidity variance induced by shallow convective clouds in a GCM

Louis d'Alençon, Frédéric Hourdin, and Catherine Rio

Data sets

Data and scripts for reproducing figures and experiments associated with EGUSphere preprint 10.5194/egusphere-2025-5798 L. d'Alençon et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19725264

Short summary

We develop and implement a prognostic model of the atmospheric humidity variance in a global climate model to improve cloud prediction. Results are systematically compared with a high-resolution model using automatic tuning tools. We show consistency with earlier work performed with a diagnostic model while providing significant improvements in the description and understanding of the atmospheric humidity distribution by highlighting the role of the air detrained from thermals.