EUREC4A: A Field Campaign to Elucidate the Couplings Between Clouds, Convection and Circulation
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Bony2017_Article_EUREC4AAFieldCampaignToElucida.pdf
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Author(s)
Bony, Sandrine
Stevens, Bjorn
Ament, Felix
Bigorre, Sebastien
Chazette, Patrick
Crewell, Susanne
Delanoë, Julien
Farrell, David
Flamant, Cyrille
Gross, Silke
Date Issued
September 2017
Journal
Surveys in Geophysics
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Citation
Bony, Sandrine et al. “EUREC4A: A Field Campaign to Elucidate the Couplings Between Clouds, Convection and Circulation.” Surveys in Geophysics 38, 6 (September 2017): 1529–1568 © 2017 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Trade-wind cumuli constitute the cloud type with the highest frequency of occurrence on Earth, and it has been shown that their sensitivity to changing environmental conditions will critically influence the magnitude and pace of future global warming. Research over the last decade has pointed out the importance of the interplay between clouds, convection and circulation in controling this sensitivity. Numerical models represent this interplay in diverse ways, which translates into different responses of trade-cumuli to climate perturbations. Climate models predict that the area covered by shallow cumuli at cloud base is very sensitive to changes in environmental conditions, while process models suggest the opposite. To understand and resolve this contradiction, we propose to organize a field campaign aimed at quantifying the physical properties of trade-cumuli (e.g., cloud fraction and water content) as a function of the large-scale environment. Beyond a better understanding of clouds-circulation coupling processes, the campaign will provide a reference data set that may be used as a benchmark for advancing the modelling and the satellite remote sensing of clouds and circulation. It will also be an opportunity for complementary investigations such as evaluating model convective parameterizations or studying the role of ocean mesoscale eddies in air–sea interactions and convective organization. Keywords:
Trade-wind cumulus; Shallow convection; Cloud feedback; Atmospheric circulation; Field campaign
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/S10712-017-9428-0
