African easterly waves are well understood from a dry perspective. They are well known to be associated with a mixed barotropic-baroclinic instability of the African easterly jet. However we are far from having a good understanding of the interactions between easterly waves and moist physical processes. This work considers how deep moist convection is triggered in the African
easterly waves and how this feeds back on the waves. The approach taken here is to first develop the idealised life-cycles of Thorncroft and Hoskins (1994) to include prescribed heating. These results will then be compared to the same life-cyles but including parametrisations of deep moist convection, radiation and surface processes. This work has major consequences for our understanding of what triggers convection in the tropics as well as the scale interactions involved in the West African monsoon and Atlantic tropical cyclogenesis.