Understanding tropical circulation patterns and their impact on precipitation under global warming

This thesis examines the overarching question of processes that affects rainfall in the earth’s tropics. The focus of this study is on one such process, the tropical large-scale circulation. The changes in this circulation due to different warming scenarios and their effect on rainfall is examined in a variety of simple models. This study revealed that the vertical structure of the circulation is most important for rainfall changes. It also questioned prevalent theories in literature and provides a way to constrain future projections of rainfall in climate models.