Precipitation‐Moisture Coupling Over Tropical Oceans: Sequential Roles of Shallow, Deep, and Mesoscale Convective Systems
Abstract
Precipitation over tropical oceans rapidly increases when the environmental column saturation fraction (CSF) increases past a critical value of ∼0.7. Past studies suggested that increased stratiform rainfall greatly contributes to the rapid rainfall enhancement. In this study, the sequential roles of non‐deep convection, deep convection, and mesoscale convective system (MCS) in precipitation‐moisture interactions are examined using 19 years of satellite observations. When CSF is below ∼0.5, non‐deep convection dominates total rainfall, and predominantly contributes to moistening of the environment. Between the CSF range of 0.5–0.7, transition to deep convective rainfall begins. Meanwhile, MCS contribution to total rain rapidly increases, and the environment is further moistened. MCS becomes the major rainfall type above the critical CSF value (∼0.7), with the rapid increase of total rain mostly explained by the rapid increase in MCS rain area. Rainfall reduction at high CSF values is jointly contributed by MCS and non‐deep convection.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Mar 29, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1029/2022gl097836
Entities
People
- L. Ruby Leung
- Qiu Yang
- Xingchao Chen
- Zhe Feng
Organizations
- Office of Biological and Environmental Research
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
- Pennsylvania State University