Properties of convectively induced turbulence over developing oceanic convection

Convectively induced turbulence (CIT) is an aviation hazard that continues to be a forecasting challenge as operational forecast models are too coarse to resolve turbulence affecting aircraft. In particular, little is known about tropical maritime CIT. In this study, a numerical simulation of a tropical oceanic CIT case where severe turbulence was encountered by a commercial aircraft is performed. The Richardson number (Ri), subgrid-scale eddy dissipation rate (EDR), and second-order structure functions (SF) are used as diagnostics to determine which may be used for CIT related to developing and mature convection. Model-derived subgrid-scale EDR in past studies of midlatitude continental CIT was shown to be a good diagnostic of turbulence but underpredicted turbulence intensity and areal coverage in this tropical simulation. SF diagnosed turbulence with moderate to severe intensity near convection and agreed most with observations. Further, SF were used to diagnose turbulence for developing convection. Results show that the areal coverage of turbulence associated with developing convection is less than mature convection. However, the intensity of turbulence in the vicinity of developing convection is greater than the turbulence intensity in the vicinity of mature convection highlighting developing convection as an additional concern to aviation.