Cold Pool and Surface Flux Interactions in Different Environments

Abstract:

Cold pools play important roles in tropical and midlatitude deep convective initiation and organization through their influence on near-surface kinematic and thermodynamic fields. Because temperature, moisture, and winds are perturbed within cold pools, cold pools can also impact surface sensible and latent heat fluxes. In turn, surface fluxes both within the cold pool and in the environment can modify the characteristics of cold pools and their evolution, with subsequent implications for convective initiation and organization. The two-way interaction between cold pools and surface energy fluxes has not been well studied and is likely to vary according to the environment and surface type. The goal of this study is therefore to investigate the mechanisms by which surface fluxes and cold pools interact in environmental conditions ranging from tropical oceanic to dry continental. This goal will be accomplished using high-resolution (grid spacings as fine as 10 m), idealized, 2D simulations of isolated cold pools; such modeling experiments have proven useful for investigating cold pools and their dynamics in many previous studies. In the proposed experiments, the surface flux formulation, surface type, and environmental conditions will be systematically varied. The impact of surface fluxes on various cold pool characteristics and their evolution, including the buoyancy, maximum vertical velocity, and moisture distribution, will be analyzed and presented. Results suggest that the mechanisms by which surface fluxes and cold pools interact vary substantially with the environment. Additionally, the indirect effects of surface fluxes on turbulent entrainment rates into the cold pool are found to play an important role in cold pool evolution. These results suggest that surface fluxes can impact the timing and manner in which cold pools initiate convection, and that their effects may be important to incorporate into cold pool parameterizations for climate simulations.