The universal scaling characteristics of tropical oceanic rain clusters
Name
2016JD025921.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
3.87 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Teo, C.-K.
Huynh, H.-N.
Koh, T.-Y.
Cheung, K. K. W.
Legras, B.
Chew, L. Y.
Norford, Leslie Keith
Alternative Title
Scaling of Tropical Rain Clusters
Date Issued
May 2017
Journal
JGR Atmospheres
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Citation
Teo, C.-K. et al. "The universal scaling characteristics of tropical oceanic rain clusters." JGR Atmospheres 122 (June 2017): 5582-5599 © 2017 American Geophysical Union
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Using multiyear satellite rainfall estimates, the distributions of the area, and the total rain rate of rain clusters over the equatorial Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans was found to exhibit a power law f[subscript s](s)~s[superscript -ζ[subscript s]], in which S represents either the cluster area or the cluster total rain rate and f[subscript s](s) denotes the probability density function of finding an event of size s. The scaling exponents ζS were estimated to be 1.66 ± 0.06 and 1.48 ± 0.13 for the cluster area and cluster total rain rate, respectively. The two exponents were further found to be related via the expected total rain rate given a cluster area. These results suggest that convection over the tropical oceans is organized into rain clusters with universal scaling properties. They are also related through a simple scaling relation consistent with classical self-organized critical phenomena. The results from this study suggest that mesoscale rain clusters tend to grow by increasing in size and intensity, while larger clusters tend to grow by self-organizing without intensification. Keywords: tropical rain clusters; self-organized criticality
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1002/2016jd025921
