Identification

Title

Diagnostics of convective transport over the Tropical Western Pacific from trajectory analyses

Abstract

This study characterizes the representation of convective transport by a Lagrangian trajectory model driven by kinematic (pressure tendency ω) vertical velocity. Four (re)analysis wind products are used in backward trajectory calculations with the TRAJ3D model, and their representations of convective transport are analyzed. Two observation-based diagnostics are used for the evaluation: a database of observed convective cloud tops derived from satellite measurements and a set of transit time distributions (TTDs) derived from an airborne campaign during January–February 2014 in a domain over the Tropical Western Pacific (TWP). The analysis is designed to derive trajectory-based TTDs that can be directly evaluated using the observation-based TTDs. The results indicate a broad consistency between two independent TTD derivations characterizing vertical transport over the TWP, with a significant portion of convective transport processes represented in trajectory experiments driven by the selected (re)analysis wind products. The convective and boundary layer source regions of upper tropospheric air parcels are shown to be consistent with the climatological flow regime within the TWP. Furthermore, contributions of convection are identified in the ω fields of the (re)analysis wind data sets, as indicated by the spatiotemporal correlation of enhanced vertical velocity and observed convection. These results demonstrate the successful application of two observation-based diagnostics and quantify the ability for kinematic trajectory models to represent convective transport processes.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7fb56cx

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2021-09-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact