Collaborative Research: Impact of Convectively-Generated Gravity Waves on Mesoscale Convective Systems

由雷暴产生的重力波通常与夜间雷暴群（称为“中尺度对流系统”（MCS））有关;风暴系统经常产生暴雨和破坏性大风。 这些重力波改变了MCS周围的环境及其内部循环。 考虑到周围环境或内部环流的微小变化也会影响MCS的发展，因此，提高对这些波过程的理解对于成功预测MCS非常重要。 重力波与风暴加剧和潜在的恶劣天气有关，因此对这些特征的更好理解将有助于改善对恶劣天气风险的即时短期预测。 这项研究支持一名早期职业女性调查员和一名研究生，还涉及一所大学和参与大气研究的私营企业之间的合作。 了解MCS重力波产生-反馈过程，包括微物理扰动对这一过程的影响，将有助于更好地了解MCS的发展以及对流对这些环境变化的敏感性。了解由于对流产生的重力波而导致的环境变化的程度，以正确模拟MCS是了解MCS可预测性的重要一步。 此外，由MCS产生的重力波特性的知识允许推断的相位，深度，和强度的潜热加热廓线没有直接的微物理观测，可以是资源密集型的获得。了解微物理扰动对重力波的产生和影响的影响，将有助于微物理参数化的发展，从而更好地数值模式预测对流。 模型模拟将与来自平原夜间高架对流（PECAN）现场活动的实际数据进行比较。

Gravity waves, generated by thunderstorms, are commonly associated with nighttime thunderstorm clusters called "Mesoscale Convective Systems" (MCSs); storm systems that are frequent producers of heavy rainfall and damaging winds. These gravity waves modify both the environment surrounding the MCS and its internal circulation. Considering that even small changes in the surrounding environment or internal circulation have been shown to affect MCS development, improved understanding of these wave processes is important to successful MCS prediction. Gravity waves have been linked to storm intensification and potential severe weather, so improved understanding of these features would lead to improved immediate, short-term forecasts of severe weather risks. This research supports an early career female investigator and one graduate student, and also involves a collaboration between a university and private industry involved in atmospheric research. Knowledge of the MCS gravity wave generation-feedback process, including the influence of microphysical perturbations on this process, will lead to better understanding of MCS development, as well as the sensitivity of convection to these environmental changes. Understanding the extent to which changes in the environment due to convectively generated gravity waves need to be captured to correctly simulate MCSs is a significant step to understanding MCS predictability. Furthermore, knowledge of the gravity wave characteristics produced by an MCS allows inferences to be made about the phase, depth, and intensity of the latent heating profile without direct microphysical observations that can be resource-intensive to obtain. Understanding of the influence of microphysical perturbations upon the generation and impacts of gravity waves will be useful in microphysical parameterization development, leading to better numerical model prediction of convection in general. Model simulations will be compared against actual data from the Plains Elevated Convection at Night (PECAN) Field Campaign.