Study of In-Scale/Out-Of-Scale Energetics/Scale Interactions for the Understanding of a Mechanism for the MJO using DYNAMO Data Sets

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This project aims at understanding the mechanisms that drive an important tropical mode of intraseasonal variability called the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO). The main observational data used for this study are datasets from ships, radar and satellites collected during the 2011-2012 interagency field campaign, Dynamics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (DYNAMO). The following question on scale interactions will be addressed: How do cloud systems whose scale is of the order of a few kilometers and a life time of less than one day interact with the MJO whose scales are 10,000 km and 40 days? This project will provide insights on how different scales in the atmosphere communicate with each other, viz. clouds, cloud organization, the synoptic scale that defines weather disturbances such as lows and depressions, the diurnal cycle, the MJO, and the annual cycle. The passage of the MJO is known to be important for the weather and climate of Africa, Asia, Australia, and the western Pacific Ocean. More recently the presence of the MJO time scale has been invoked for understanding how atmospheric wave trains emanating from Asia impact the Arctic weather. Better modeling of all such features requires a much deeper understanding of the mechanism for the maintenance and the life cycle of the MJO. It is anticipated that improved understanding of the MJO through this project will contribute to improvements in weather and climate forecasts. This project will provide an opportunity to train a post-doctoral candidate in scale interactions, tropical meteorology and high performance computing. In addition student visitors to the laboratory will be exposed to the study of weather impacts arising from the passage of MJO waves over different parts of the tropics.