Cloud cluster life cycle over the Amazonia during the WET AMC/LBA campaign

. Tropical convective systems are important because they account for most of the total rainfall. Moreover they are responsible for the main vertical exchanges of energy in the tropical troposphere. An automatic method for tracking cloud clusters during their life cycle has been developed. The objective is to derive statistics on propagation of tropical cloud clusters, and to study their morphological and radiative properties during their life cycle. Using GOES infrared images, the method allows for the tracking of every mesocale convective cloud cluster, defined as adjacent pixels colder than a brightness temperature threshold. The tracking algorithm is based on the cluster overlap between two successive images. The methodology takes into account splitting and merging of cloud clusters, and allows for an objective determination of parameters such as: size, mean temperature, temperature variance, duration, coordinates of the center of gravity, speed, trajectory, eccentricity etc. Using full space and time resolution satellite data, the study is here limited to the Amazonian region during the wet season Atmospheric Mesoscale campaign (WET AMC) of the Large scale Biosphere Atmosphere experiment in Amazonia (LBA), in January-February 1999. Trajectory, diurnal variation, location of cloud cluster initiation and dissipation, variations of cloud cluster properties during the cluster life cycle are analyzed with complimentary in-situ observation