A tropical squall line observed during the COPT 81 experiment in West Africa. Part III: heat and moisture budgets

Abstract

The role of moist convective processes in the heat and moisture budgets of the 22 June 1981 tropical squall line is investigated. Detailed kinematic structure from Doppler radar observations, and thermodynamic and microphysical fields diagnosed from a steady-state model, respectively presented in Parts I and II of this paper, are used to estimate the total apparent heat source and moisture sink. The relative contributions of the system components (the convective-scale component associated with the leading convective region, and the mesoscale component of the trailing stratiform region) and of the physical processes (latent heat release and eddy transports) are examined. -from Authors