Observing Convective Aggregation
Observing Convective Aggregation
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DOI：
10.1007/s10712-017-9419-1
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发表时间：
2017-11-01
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Zuidema, Paquita
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Holloway, Christopher E.;Wing, Allison A.;Zuidema, Paquita
对流自聚集，即尽管空间均匀的边界条件和强迫，最初分散的对流自发组织成孤立的对流簇，首次在理想化数值模拟中得到认识和研究。虽然对流聚集和组织的观测工作有着丰富的历史，但只有少数研究分析了观测结果，专门寻找与模型中自聚集相关的过程。在这里，我们回顾了这两个类别的观察工作，并激发了对更多这方面工作的需求。我们承认，在时间尺度、初始条件、起始过程和平均状态极值方面，自聚集似乎与观察到的对流组织相去甚远，但我们认为，这些差异在文献中不同范围的模型模拟中差异很大，并且这些比较已经为真正的热带现象提供了重要的见解。提出了一些初步的新发现，包括结果表明，与瑙鲁的无线电探空仪记录相比，方形几何形状的自聚集模拟的湿度分布过于广泛，并且在最干燥的地区过于干燥，而细长的通道模拟则可以真实地表示大气湿度及其变化性。我们讨论了最近的工作，加深了我们对有组织对流和气候变化如何相互作用的理解，以及与这个问题相关的模型差异如何激发人们对观测比较的兴趣。我们还提出了与对流聚集相关的观测工作未来可能的方向，包括新颖的卫星方法和地面观测网络。
Convective self-aggregation, the spontaneous organization of initially scattered convection into isolated convective clusters despite spatially homogeneous boundary conditions and forcing, was first recognized and studied in idealized numerical simulations. While there is a rich history of observational work on convective clustering and organization, there have been only a few studies that have analyzed observations to look specifically for processes related to self-aggregation in models. Here we review observational work in both of these categories and motivate the need for more of this work. We acknowledge that self-aggregation may appear to be far-removed from observed convective organization in terms of time scales, initial conditions, initiation processes, and mean state extremes, but we argue that these differences vary greatly across the diverse range of model simulations in the literature and that these comparisons are already offering important insights into real tropical phenomena. Some preliminary new findings are presented, including results showing that a self-aggregation simulation with square geometry has too broad distribution of humidity and is too dry in the driest regions when compared with radiosonde records from Nauru, while an elongated channel simulation has realistic representations of atmospheric humidity and its variability. We discuss recent work increasing our understanding of how organized convection and climate change may interact, and how model discrepancies related to this question are prompting interest in observational comparisons. We also propose possible future directions for observational work related to convective aggregation, including novel satellite approaches and a ground-based observational network.