Large-scale Characteristics of Tropical Convective Systems through the Prism of Cloud Regime.

ABSTRACT: We employ the Cloud Regime (CR) concept to identify large-scale tropical convective systems and investigate their characteristics in terms of organization and precipitation. The tropical CRs (TCRs) are derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Cloud Optical Thickness (COT) and Cloud Top Pressure (CTP) two-dimensional joint histograms. We focus on the TCRs that have relatively low CTPs and high COTs, as well as heavy precipitation, namely TCR1 (convective core-dominant), TCR2 (various high clouds), and TCR3 (anvils). The horizontal size of aggregates of TCR1, 2, or 3 occurrences (TCR123) is identified as the number of contiguous 1°×1° grid cells occupied by either of these three TCRs. For the small to intermediate size aggregates (TCR123

SUBMITTER: Jin D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7299438 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature