Extremely tall convection: characteristics and controls

Abstract:

Tall continental convective structures are observed in several climatological regions, and have been shown to be related with severe weather and extreme hydrologic events. Recent work has defined tall convection as regions with precipitation structures observed with spaceborne radar echo extending into the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere. While these climatological regions are known for these tall convective structures (subtropical South America, equatorial Africa, southcentral USA, South Asia), not all observed convective eventsin these regions contain strong structures, and the characteristics of the meteorological environments, including sounding profiles, that dictate the strength of the spectrum of convective systems are poorly constrained. In this study, precipitation radar (PR) data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR) from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellites will be examined alongside composites of atmospheric reanalysis data to examine the structural and meteorological environments surrounding observed tall convective systems. Environments of convective systems of various vertical extents will be contrasted with less extreme convection to infer physical causal mechanisms and to examine issues of predictability of these events.