Convective Forcing Mechanisms over the East Pacific Warm Pool in EPIC2001

东太平洋海洋-大气耦合系统气候过程调查（EPIC）是美国气候变率和可预测性计划（CLIVAR）的一个项目。EPIC 2001由四个部分组成，重点关注(i)热带辐合带（ITCZ）暖池现象；（ii）跨赤道流入环太平洋货币区；（iii）上层海洋结构和混合；(4)东南信风区边界层云性质的探索性研究。EPIC 2001的实地阶段计划在2001年9月1日至10月15日期间进行为期6周的研究。除了大气科学部颁发的8个奖项外，这项合作研究还获得了美国国家科学基金会海洋科学部和美国国家海洋和大气管理局全球项目办公室颁发的奖项。根据该合同，PI将在现场阶段收集各种数据集，并使用这些数据集来检查东太平洋ITCZ的对流机制。这项工作将是开发和验证海洋-大气耦合全球环流模式中大气分量非绝热过程参数化的关键。这项工作很重要，因为它将提高对热带太平洋东部气候变化的理解和建模。

EPIC (Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate processes in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system) is an activity of the US Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) Program. EPIC 2001 consists of four components focussing on (i) intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) warm pool phenomena; (ii) cross-equatorial inflow into the ITCZ; (iii) upper ocean structure and mixing; and (iv) an exploratory study of boundary layer cloud properties in the southeasterly tradewind regime. The field phase of EPIC 2001 is scheduled for a 6-week period during the interval Sept 1 to Oct 15, 2001. In addition to the eight awards made by the Division of Atmospheric Sciences, this collaborative research has awards made by NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences and NOAA's Office of Global Programs.Under this award, the PI will gather various data sets in the field phase, and use these to examine the set of mechanisms that force convection in the east Pacific ITCZ. The work will be key to the development and verification of parameterizations for diabatic processes in the atmospheric components of coupled ocean-atmosphere global circulation models. The work is important because it will improve understanding and modeling of climate variability over the eastern tropical Pacific.