1 / 17

Extreme Convection in the Equatorial Zone as Seen by 16 Years of TRMM PR

Extreme Convection in the Equatorial Zone as Seen by 16 Years of TRMM PR. M. D. Zuluaga and R. A. Houze, Jr. University of Washington. PMM Science Team Meeting, Baltimore, 7 August 2014. Use TRMM to find the most pronounced convective & stratiform elements.

africa
Download Presentation

Extreme Convection in the Equatorial Zone as Seen by 16 Years of TRMM PR

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Extreme Convection in the Equatorial Zone as Seen by 16 Years of TRMM PR M. D. Zuluaga and R. A. Houze, Jr. University of Washington PMM Science Team Meeting, Baltimore, 7 August 2014

  2. Use TRMM to find the most pronouncedconvective & stratiform elements Identify every contiguous 3D echo object (“storm”)seen by PR Convective component Stratiform component Extreme characteristic Contiguous 3D volume ofconvective echo > 40 dBZ Extreme characteristic Contiguous stratiform echowith horizontal area > 50 000 km2 “Broad stratiform region” Horizontal area > 1 000 km2 “Wide convective core” Top height > 10 km “Deep convective core”

  3. Diurnal Behavior in Each Subregion

  4. DCC BSR Land WCC Coastal Open ocean

  5. Synoptic Scale Environments (ERA-I)

  6. Africa 700 hPa anomaly fields: • Geopotential height • Wind vectors

  7. Coast of Tropical America 850 hPa anomalies

  8. Anomalies of divergence and specific humidity Div. Orographic Enhancement over Andes Andes Andes

  9. East Pacific ITCZ

  10. Storms with BSR associated with Tropical Cyclone (TC) development in the East Pacific Tropical disturbance trajectory* Storms with BSR Storms with BSR associated to a TCs *database: Northeast and North Central Pacific hurricane best-track data (HURDAT2, NHC) ~30% of storms

  11. Summary: Behavior of extreme convective metrics in the near equatorial region DiurnalStrongest for DCCs over landSequence consistent with upscale growth: DCCWCCBSR Orographic Powerful enhancement of WCC & BSR by flow over Andes Synoptic Prominent for mesoscale organized features: WCC & BSR Maxima of WCC and BSR associated with lows at 850-700 hPa BSR over oceans max in regions of TC genesis

  12. End This research was supported by: NASA grants NNX13AG71G, NNX12AJ82G, NNX10AH70GDOE grant DE-SC0008452NSF grants AGS1144105 and AGS1355567

  13. ITCZ intersects two landmasses of differing characteristics

  14. DCC BSR WCC

  15. Summary: Behavior of extreme convective metrics in the near equatorial region DCCs mark the early stage of MCS40 dBZ over land, 30 dBZ over oceanstrongly diurnally forced—especially over mountains WCCs aggregated intense convection—in maturing MCSsoccur over both land and seaoccur later in day than DCCassociated with 700 hPa synoptic-scale cyclonic flowenhanced by orographic lifting BSRs occur in late stages of MCSsmostly oceanic—near west coastsdiurnal variability is slight but max later than WCCassociated with TC development over oceans west of Africa and SA

  16. Association of echo types with convection metrics Deep & Wide Deep conv. Wide conv. Broad Str.

More Related