Convective characteristics and estimated heating structures from C-POL observations during TWP-ICE

The Tropical Warm Pool International Cloud Experiment (TWP-ICE) provided scanning C-band, polarimetric radar (C-POL) observations during the active and break periods of the Australian monsoon in early 2006. The coverage and sensitivity of C-POL allow the analysis of the horizontal and vertical structure of precipitation and thick anvil (i.e., non-precipitating cloud associated with deep convection). For example, convective rain covered ~5% of the radar domain during the experiment, whereas stratiform rain covered 15%. However, stratiform rain only accounted for 20% of the total rainfall. Anvil observable by C-POL covered almost 9% of the radar domain, half by ice-only anvil with an average base of 11.7 km and 2.8 km thickness, half by anvil with an average base of 4.2 km and 6.7 km thickness. Because of C-POL's limited sensitivity to smaller hydrometeors, the anvil statistics will be compared to the DOE ARM cloud radar at Darwin. We will use C-POL observations to estimate latent heating profiles in the convective and stratiform rain regions, as well as to make gross approximations of the radiative heating profile in the precipitating and thick anvil regions. Heating profile variations will be linked to the variability of convective structures during the active and break monsoon periods and will be compared to other measures of diabatic heating. This data set provides a first approximation of the relationship between the separate components of the diabatic heating associated with convective systems in the West Pacific warm pool region.