Seminar Announcement, Earth System Physics

[Adrian Tompkins]

This Thursday 10th June, 15:00, we announce the last lecture in the 2021 
series

*Environmental Meteorology: From the Fundamentals of Climate to 
Operational Applications*

To be given by Prof. Sandrine Bony.

For registration details see: 
https://www.ictp.it/research/esp/seminar-series.aspx

Mesoscale organization of trade-wind clouds: First insights from EUREC4A

Sandrine Bony

Sandrine Bony
/Directrice de Recherche (CNRS)
Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique (LMD/IPSL)
Sorbonne Université
Paris, France/
[https://emc3.lmd.jussieu.fr/en/group-members/sbony 
<https://emc3.lmd.jussieu.fr/en/group-members/sbony>]

*Abstract*

Shallow convection exhibits a large diversity of spatial organizations 
at the mesoscale. Patterns such as cloud streets, open cells or closed 
cells have long been identified and characterized, but they are not 
representative of the patterns that can be found over the warm 
subtropical oceans. Recently, a few prominent patterns of trade-wind 
clouds have been identified over the tropical western Atlantic. Based on 
observations, I will show that these patterns depend on environmental 
conditions, and that they exert different radiative impacts. This raises 
two questions: What are the physical processes underlying changes in the 
mesoscale organization of shallow clouds? and do they matter for climate 
feedbacks? Answering these questions was one of the motivations for 
organizing the EUREC4A campaign (http://eurec4a.eu/ 
<http://eurec4a.eu/>). During this field study which took place in 
Jan-Feb 2020 near Barbados, multiple observing platforms characterized 
the trade-wind clouds together with their dynamical and thermodynamical 
environment on a wide range of scales. I will present early insights 
from the campaign, and will discuss some of the processes that appear to 
be important for the mesoscale organization of tradewind clouds.