This study applies new satellite datasets and methodologies to build on previous research exploring the physical relationship between lightning and precipitation in mid-/high latitudes. Specifically, three years of Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission core satellite coincident observations are examined to investigate relationships between lightning flash rate and microwave characteristics of convective precipitation features (cPFs) over the Americas and surrounding oceans between ± 50° latitude. Mid-/high latitude cPFs with lightning are characterized by colder temperatures of maximum 30 dBz echo top height and a smaller range of microwave brightness temperatures when compared to the tropics. Brightness temperature characteristics of electrically active cPFs are highly correlated to radar-diagnosed ice mass and largely insensitive to synoptic-scale proxies for convective strength and organization. Low flash density cPFs tend to be more sensitive to synoptic-scale instability and shear than high flash density cPFs. Regional differences in the environmental forcing and characteristics of electrically active cPFs are shown. For example, the elevated terrain surrounding the Amazon River Basin is characterized by stronger vertical updrafts indicated by higher values of normalized CAPE (NCAPE) while the La Plata River Basin is characterized by both stronger updrafts and higher values of radar-diagnosed ice water mass.

Tropical gravity waves that are generated by convection are generally too small in scale and too high in frequency to be resolved in global climate models, yet their drag forces drive the important global-scale quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) in the lower stratosphere, and models rely on parameterizations of gravity wave drag to simulate the QBO. We compare detailed properties of tropical parameterized gravity waves in the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model Version 6 (WACCM6) with gravity waves observed by long-duration super-pressure balloons, and also compare properties of parameterized convective latent heating with satellite data. Similarities and differences suggest that the WACCM6 parameterizations are excellent tools for representing tropical gravity waves, but the results also suggest detailed changes to the gravity wave parameterization tuning parameter assumptions that would bring the parameterized waves into much better agreement with observations. While WACCM6 currently includes only non-stationary gravity waves from convection, addition of the component that is stationary relative to convective rain cells is likely to improve the simulation of the QBO in the model. The suggested changes have the potential to alleviate common biases in simulated QBO circulations in models.