REGIONAL VARIABILITY IN TROPICAL CONVECTION: OBSERVATIONS FROM TRMM By

Observation of the vertical profile of precipitation over the global tropics is a key objective of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) because this information is central to obtaining vertical profiles of latent heating. The present study combines both TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) and Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) data to examine “wet-season” vertical structures of tropical precipitation across a broad spectrum of locations in the global tropics. TRMM-PR reflectivity data (2A-25 algorithm) were utilized to produce seasonal mean three dimensional relative frequency histograms and precipitation ice-water contents over grid boxes of approximately 5°10° in latitude and longitude. The reflectivity histograms and ice water contents were then combined with LIS lightning flash densities and 2A-25 mean rainfall rates to examine regional relationships between precipitation vertical structure, precipitation processes, and lightning production. Analysis of the reflectivity vertical structure histograms, and lightning flash density data reveal that 1) relative to tropical continental locations, wet-season isolated tropical oceanic locations exhibit relatively little spatial (and in some instances seasonal) variability in vertical structure across the global tropics; 2) coastal locations and areas located within 500-1000 km of a continent exhibit considerable seasonal and spatial variability in mean vertical structure, often resembling “continental” profiles or falling intermediate to that of tropical continental and isolated oceanic regimes; and 3) interior tropical continental locations exhibit marked variability in vertical structure both spatially and seasonally, exhibiting a continuum of characteristics ranging from a near isolated oceanic profile observed over the central Amazon and India, to a more robust continental profile observed over regions such as the Congo and Florida. Examination of regional and seasonal mean conditional instability for a small, but representative subset of the geographic locations suggests that tropospheric thermodynamic structure likely plays a significant role in the regional characteristics of precipitation vertical structure and associated lightning flash density. In general, the largest systematic variability in precipitation vertical structure observed between all of the locations examined occurred above the freezing level. Importantly, sub-freezing temperature variability in the vertical reflectivity structures was well reflected in the seasonal mean lightning flash densities and ice water contents diagnosed for each location. In turn, systematically larger rainfall rates were observed on a pixel-by-pixel basis in locations with larger precipitation ice water content and lightning flash density. These results delineate, in a regional sense, the relative importance of mixed phase precipitation production across the global tropics.