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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • overshooting
  • convection

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Processes: Convective processes
  • Atmospheric Processes: Tropical meteorology
  • Atmospheric Processes: Stratosphere/troposphere interactions
  • Atmospheric Processes: Remote sensing

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L09804, 5 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2009GL037396

Overshooting convection in tropical cyclones

David M. Romps

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Zhiming Kuang

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Using infrared satellite imagery, best-track data, and reanalysis data, tropical cyclones are shown to contain a disproportionate amount of the deepest convection in the tropics. Although tropical cyclones account for only 7% of the deep convection in the tropics, they account for about 15% of the deep convection with cloud-top temperatures below the monthly averaged tropopause temperature and 29% of the clouds that attain a cloud-top temperature 15 K below the temperature of the tropopause. This suggests that tropical cyclones could play an important role in setting the humidity of the stratosphere.

Received 20 January 2009; accepted 8 April 2009; published 6 May 2009.

Citation: Romps, D. M., and Z. Kuang (2009), Overshooting convection in tropical cyclones, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L09804, doi:10.1029/2009GL037396.

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