How will the moist atmospheric heat engine change in a warming climate?

Incoming and outgoing solar radiation couple with heat exchange at Earth's surface to drive weather patterns that redistribute heat and moisture around the globe, creating an atmospheric heat engine. In this presentation, I will use thermodynamic diagrams computed from reanalyzed observations and from a climate model simulation with anthropogenic forcing to discuss how the heat engine's work output is likely to change in a warming climate. My presentation will be based on the idea that the work output is always less than that of an equivalent Carnot cycle and that it is constrained by the power necessary to maintain the hydrological cycle. I will present results showing that in the climate simulation the hydrological cycle increases more rapidly than the equivalent Carnot cycle, leading me to conclude that the intensification of the hydrological cycle in warmer climates might limit the heat engine's ability to generate work. Finally, I will describe results suggesting that the most explosive deep convective events are likely to strengthen at the expense of less explosive events.