Identification

Title

Characteristics of vertical air motion in isolated convective clouds

Abstract

The vertical velocity and air mass flux in isolated convective clouds are statistically analyzed using aircraft in situ data collected from three field campaigns: High-Plains Cumulus (HiCu) conducted over the mid-latitude High Plains, COnvective Precipitation Experiment (COPE) conducted in a midlatitude coastal area, and Ice in Clouds Experiment-Tropical (ICE-T) conducted over a tropical ocean. The results show that small-scale updrafts and downdrafts (< 500 m in diameter) are frequently observed in the three field campaigns, and they make important contributions to the total air mass flux. The probability density functions (PDFs) and profiles of the observed vertical velocity are provided. The PDFs are exponentially distributed. The updrafts generally strengthen with height. Relatively strong updrafts (> 20 m s(-1) were sampled in COPE and ICE-T. The observed downdrafts are stronger in HiCu and COPE than in ICE-T. The PDFs of the air mass flux are exponentially distributed as well. The observed maximum air mass flux in updrafts is of the order 104 kg m(-1) s(-1). The observed air mass flux in the downdrafts is typically a few times smaller in magnitude than that in the updrafts. Since this study only deals with isolated convective clouds, and there are many limitations and sampling issues in aircraft in situ measurements, more observations are needed to better explore the vertical air motion in convective clouds.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d79g5pg6

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

2016-08-11T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

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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