Fall Meeting 2012 Bjerknes Lecture: Tropical Convection: A Half Century Quest for Understanding

Bjerknes Lecture: A22A. Tropical Convection: A Half Century Quest for Understanding - 2012 AGU Fall Meeting

Abstract:

http://abstractsearch.agu.org/meeting...

The tropics have been called the "boiler box" of the atmosphere because that is where the sun's energy enters the system and the population of active tropical clouds are continually distributing this energy through the depth of the troposphere. These clouds not only drive the global circulation but they are integral components of the circulation features that account for the variability the tropical circulation, from El Nino, to the monsoons, to tropical cyclones. The need to represent clouds accurately in global weather and climate models has driven a quest to understand the details of tropical clouds, their various forms, the factors controlling them and their feedbacks to the larger-scale atmospheric circulation. This quest has led to major field expeditions in all the major oceans and land regions of the tropics. These campaigns combined with a series of revolutionary satellites, culminating in TRMM and CloudSat, have led to major improvements in our understanding of the tropical cloud population and its interactions with larger scales of atmospheric motions. In this talk, we will review these advances.

Cite as: Author(s) (2012), Title, Abstract A22A-01 presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.