On the identification of the large-scale properties of tropical convection using cloud regimes

Abstract

The use of cloud regimes in identifying tropical convection and the associated large-scale atmospheric properties is investigated. The regimes are derived by applying cluster analysis to satellite retrievals of daytime-averaged frequency distributions of cloud-top pressure and optical thickness within grids of 280km by 280km resolution from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project between 1983 and 2008. An investigation of atmospheric state variables as a function of cloud regime reveals that the regimes are useful indicators of the archetypal states of the tropical atmosphere ranging from a strongly convecting regime with large stratiform cloudiness to strongly suppressed conditions showing a large coverage with stratocumulus clouds. The convectively active regimes are shown to be moist and unstable with large-scale ascending motion, while convectively suppressed regimes are dry and stable with large-scale descending winds. Importantly, the cloud regimes also represent several transitional states. In particular, the cloud regime approach allows for the identification of the "building blocks" of tropical convection, namely, the regimes dominated by stratiform, deep, and congestus convection. The availability of the daily distribution of these building blocks for more than 20 years opens new avenues for the diagnosis of convective behavior as well as the evaluation of the representation of convection in global and regional models. © 2013 American Meteorological Society.