The heated condensation framework as a convective trigger in the NCEP Climate Forecast System version 2

The new trigger replaces the original criteria in both the deep (Simplified Arakawa-Schubert - SAS) and shallow (SAS based) convective schemes. The performance of the original and new triggering criteria is first compared against radiosonde observations.

Then, a series of hindcasts are performed to evaluate the influence of the triggering criterion in the CFSv2 representation of summer precipitation, the diurnal cycle of precipitation, and hurricanes that made landfall. The observational analysis shows that the HCF trigger better captures the frequency of convection, where the original SAS trigger initiates convection too often. When implemented in CFSv2, the HCF trigger improves the seasonal forecast of the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, including the representation of the onset dates of the rainy season over India.