Dissecting diabatic heating profiles during TWP-ICE

Diabatic heating is composed of latent, radiative, and sensible heating components, with latent heating generally being the largest component in tropical convective systems. However, the radiative heating component can be dominant in regions of long-lasting upper level cloud and the sensible heating component can be significant in regions of deep convection. The vertical profile of each of these components and their relative contribution to the total diabatic heating are thus sensitive to storm type and organization.

Observations made during the Tropical Warm Pool-International Cloud Experiment (TWP-ICE), which took place in Darwin, Australia in early 2006, are used to estimate the latent, radiative, and sensible heating profiles associated with the convective systems that occurred during the active and break periods of the Australian monsoon. The heating components are further isolated by storm type (MCS, hector, etc.) and dominant radar echo type (shallow convective, deep convective, stratiform, and non-precipitating anvil), as well as over the land and ocean regions surrounding Darwin, to highlight heating profile variations associated with storm and environmental properties. The goal of this work is to have a more comprehensive understanding of the different components of total diabatic heating of tropical cloud systems and how they relate to one another.