Tropical variability and the validation of convective parameterizations

Conference · Sun Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:461383

Slingo, J ^[1]; Hodges, K ^[2]; Sperber, K ^[3]

---

1. Reading Univ. (United Kingdom). Dept. of Meteorology
2. Reading Univ. (United Kingdom). Dept. of Geography
3. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)

The weather in the tropics is dominated by the effects of cumulus convection, be it the daily cycle of rain over the continents, tropical cyclones or the seasonal monsoon rains. In turn, the heating associated with cumulus convection is the dominant driving mechanism for tropical circulation. In the last two decades, observation of the tropics by satellites have revealed a rich tapestry of space and time scales in convective activity. These range from individual clouds, to cloud clusters associated with synoptic scale disturbances, through to super cloud clusters which display intraseasonal behavior. On the planetary scale, tropical convection shoes seasonal and interannual variability associated with, for example, monsoons and the effects of ENSO. One of the main purposed of this paper is to demonstrate the type of diagnostics which should be applied to GCMs when assessing the skill of the model and the validity of the convection scheme. In the final section, a technique for studying the behavior of tropical weather systems in a statistical manner will be described, and its application to ECMWF ReAnalyses (ERA) and to geostationary satellite imagery will be discussed.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 461383
• Report Number(s): UCRL-JC--126019; CONF-9611162--1; ON: DE97051962
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION
CLIMATE MODELS
CLOUDS
CONVECTION
PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
TROPICAL REGIONS
WEATHER