Upscale Energy Transport in the Tropical Atmosphere

Decades of research in tropical meteorology have illustrated that mesoscale moist convection not only plays a key role in the distribution of heat and moisture in the tropical atmosphere, but also contributes to driving synoptic- and planetary-scale tropical weather systems. As convection-permitting (CP) atmospheric models have developed over the past few years, they have vastly increased the capacity to explore the dynamics of mesoscale convection and hence follow the direct upscale impacts of such systems. This work uses high-resolution CP simulations over tropical Africa to explore feedbacks of convective systems on themselves and their impacts on larger scales, by comparing simulations initialised with and without mesoscale convective structures. Soil moisture and low-level atmospheric moisture are highlighted as mechanisms for convective feedbacks on future convective initiation. The simulations prove a powerful illustration of the upscale impacts of mesoscale convective systems, highlighting differences in the distribution of kinetic energy across scales as the forecasts evolve differently as a result of different convective features.