Collaborative Research: Convective Processes in the Tropics Across Scales

在热带地区，降雨事件的大小不一，既有小的(如单个雷暴)，也有很大的(如季风)。很难同时观察或模拟小尺寸细节和大尺寸图案。因此，人们对云、风暴和降雨的许多方面还没有完全了解。同样重要的是要注意到，热带降雨事件不仅在热带地区产生影响，而且还可能激发天气模式，向北移出热带，影响美国大陆。这里的研究项目将提高我们对小细节和大图案相互作用的理解。项目活动将在促进教学、培训和学习的同时，通过促进发现和理解，从几个方面造福社会。特别的好处包括：(I)通过培训本科生、研究生和博士后，培养一支有竞争力的STEM劳动力队伍；(Ii)向K-12学校进行外联，使学生熟悉STEM研究并激励他们从事STEM职业；(Iii)通过指导本科生开展研究项目，扩大代表不足的群体的参与；以及(Iv)通过开展旨在影响人类的云和降雨过程的研究，改善社会个人的福祉，因为更好地了解这些过程可以帮助改进模拟和预测，并造福社会。热带潮湿对流过程涉及多种尺度。因此，由于仪器的限制，观测和模拟由于计算成本的限制而出现困难，并且许多对流现象没有被完全理解。一些例子包括岛屿海岸线和地形对热带降雨日循环的影响、对流耦合赤道波事件与热带岛屿的相互作用以及卷吸和混合过程。为了在模拟不同尺度的降水云时模拟这些过程是可行的，将利用初步研究的最新结果来使用自适应网格细化和非基于柱的网格。这些方法允许对难以或不可能用均匀间距的笛卡尔网格模拟的过程进行调查。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the tropics, rainfall events can range in size, from small in size (such as an individual thunderstorm) to very large in size (such as a monsoon). It is difficult to observe or simulate the small-sized details and the large-sized patterns at the same time. As a result, many aspects of clouds, storms, and rainfall are not fully understood. It is also important to note that tropical rainfall events have an influence not only within the tropics, but can also excite weather patterns that move northward out of the tropics and influence the continental United States. The research projects here will improve our understanding of the interaction of small-sized details and large-sized patterns.The project activities will benefit society in several ways through advancing discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning. Particular benefits include: (i) developing a competitive STEM workforce by training undergraduate students, a graduate student, and a postdoc; (ii) outreach to K-12 schools to familiarize students with STEM research and motivate them to pursue STEM careers; (iii) broadening the participation of underrepresented groups by mentoring undergraduate students in conducting research projects; and (iv) improving the well-being of individuals in society by conducting research that is aimed at cloud and rainfall processes that influence humanity, since a better understanding of these processes can help to improve modeling and predictions and benefit society.Moist convective processes in the tropics involve a vast range of scales. As a result, difficulties arise in observations due to instrument constraints and in simulations due to computational cost, and many convective phenomena are not fully understood. Some examples include the influence of island coastlines and topography on the diurnal cycle of tropical rainfall, the interaction of convectively coupled equatorial wave events and tropical islands, and entrainment and mixing processes. For simulations of these processes to be viable while modeling precipitating clouds across scales, recent results of the preliminary studies will be leveraged to use adaptive mesh refinement and non-column-based grids. These methods allow the investigation of processes that would be difficult or impossible to simulate with uniformly-spaced Cartesian grids.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.