Moist Tropical Waves and the Basic State

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Weather in the tropics is known to importantly affect weather at higher latitudes, including over the continental United States. This project will improve understanding of two prominent types of tropical weather patterns, known as convectively coupled Kelvin waves and the Madden Julian Oscillation. Addressing this issue will help to answer several longstanding scientific questions, such as why does rainfall associated with the Madden Julian Oscillation tend to be confined almost exclusively to the Indo-Pacific sector of the tropics? This new knowledge will help to bolster efforts by the broader scientific community aimed at improving models for predicting weather and climate, as a tangible benefit to society. The project will also provide training to a postdoctoral scientist and mentoring of undergraduate students from underrepresented groups, thereby helping to broaden the demographics and skills of the future workforce. Specifically, the project will use numerical models in conjunction with observations to investigate how and why these disturbances are both seen to be strongly modulated by the local basic state (or environment) in which they are embedded. The project will also investigate the structures and mechanisms of an apparently distinct class of convectively coupled Kelvin waves, whose existence and propagation depend crucially on forcing of the tropics by midlatitude weather patterns.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.