7.6
Tropical continental boundary layer entrainment water vapor fluxes
Courtenay Strong, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA; and J. D. Fuentes, M. Garstang, W. K. Tao, and A. Betts
During the wet season months of January to February 1999, a field campaign was conducted in Rondonia, Brazil to define the thermodynamic characteristics of the continental tropical mixed boundary layer under the influence of convective systems, and to quantify the amount of water vapor entering the cloud layer. This analysis of water vapor transport is relevant to cloud-resolving models which derive estimates of atmospheric diabatic heating in the tropical atmosphere. We have employed knowledge of mixed boundary layer thermodynamics to quantify the coupling between the surface-based exchange of water vapor with exchange occurring in the deeper atmosphere. Also, data analyses and theoretical work have been completed to understand how well entrainment and detrainment rates of water vapor are modeled at the top of the boundary layer. Results from these analyses will be incorporated into the Goddard Cloud Ensemble Model to investigate the sensitivity of surface-atmosphere and entrainment-detrainment processes on cloud development and hence diabatic heating. Results from field data analyses and modeling studies will be presented and discussed.
Session 7, Regional land-atmosphere interactions
Wednesday, 22 May 2002, 8:30 AM-11:30 AM
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