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Systematic Analysis of Convection for OTREC and PREDICT
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  • Zeljka Fuchs-Stone,
  • Stipo Sentic,
  • David J. Raymond,
  • Peter Bechtold
Zeljka Fuchs-Stone
New Mexico Tech

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Stipo Sentic
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
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David J. Raymond
New Mexico Tech
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Peter Bechtold
European Center for Medium range Weather Forecast, UK
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Abstract

The systematic analysis of convection and the environment is performed for two field projects, OTREC and PREDICT by implementing 3DVAR on drospondes data sets. Vertically integrated moisture convergence is taken to be a proxy for convection. The interplay between the thermodynamic parameters is examined for three different stages of convection: strong convection, medium to weak and weak to null convection. It is found that for strong convection saturation fraction anti-correlates with instability index and DCIN in a similar manner for all analyzed regions of PREDICT and OTREC, while the differences in the environment become more pronounced as we move towards weak and null convection. ECMWF operational model is used to look at the time evolution of convection. As convection increases, saturation fraction increases while instability index and DCIN decrease. The boundary layer and free troposphere both play an important role in convection development in OTREC and PREDICT regions.