DYNAMO and Beyond

The DYNAMO/CINDY2011/AMIE/LASP field campaign is the third largest international field program on tropical convection and air-sea interaction, next to GATE and TOGA COARE. Its overarching goal is to expedite our understanding of processes key to MJO initiation over the Indian Ocean and our efforts to improve simulation and prediction of the MJO. In this presentation, I will first briefly compare DYNAMO to GATE and TOGA COARE in their scopes and achievements. Then I will summarize the contributions to DYNAMO by Bob Houze and his research team at University of Washington. At last, I will discuss issues and challenges we are facing in advancing field observations of convective processes in the tropics.