Preconditioning deep convection with cumulus congestus

Abstract

Recent studies have pushed forward the idea that congestus clouds, through their moistening of the atmosphere, could promote deep convection. On the other hand, older studies have tended to relate convective initiation to the large-scale forcing. These two views are here contrasted by performing a time-scale analysis. The analysis combines ship observations, large-eddy simulations, and 1 month of brightness temperature measurements with a focus on the tropical Atlantic and adjacent land areas. The time-scale analysis suggests that previous work may have overstated the importance of congestus moistening in the preconditioning of deep convection. It is found that cumuli congestus transition very rapidly to deep convection, in 2 h over land and 4 h over ocean. This is much faster than the time needed (10 h and longer) by congestus clouds to sufficiently moisten the atmosphere. Moreover, the majority of congestus clouds seem unable to grow into cumulonimbus and the probability of transition does not increase with increasing congestus lifetime (i.e., more moistening). Finally, the presence of cumuli congestus over a given region generally does not enhance the likelihood for deep convection development, either with respect to other regions or to clear-sky conditions. Hence, the results do not support the view of an atmosphere slowly deepening by local moistening, but rather, they may be interpreted as reminiscent of an atmosphere marked by violent and sudden outbursts of convection forced by dynamical effects. This also implies that moisture convergence is more important than local surface fluxes to trigger deep convection over a certain region. © 2013 American Meteorological Society.