The importance of understanding how convection organizes cannot be understated. In the aforementioned idealized modeling studies, for instance, the development of large-scale convective organization through self-aggregation alters the mean temperature and moisture

Convective cloud clusters are responsible for most of the rainfall and cloudiness over the tropics, therefore modulating the radiative heating and cooling rates of the surface and atmosphere and influencing the large-scale circulation and moisture distribution. Therefore, understanding how and why tropical convection organizes is important for understanding both tropical and global climate variability. In this study, the problem is approached through the context of idealized modeling of convective organization in radiative-convective equilibrium using a cloud resolving model. Previous studies have investigated interactions between the environment and the convection that allow convection to self-aggregate into a single cluster, and have found this self-aggregation to be dependent sea surface temperature, domain size, and horizontal resolution. To examine the nature of this SST threshold, we will perform threedimensional cloud system resolving simulations with a doubly periodic horizontal domain, and interactive radiation and surface fluxes. These simulations will assess the plausible physical mechanisms controlling the self-aggregation phenomenon and its sensitivities. This work is a follow up of CISL Project Number 35171154, which was previously awarded GAU’s on Bluefire through small allocations. The NSF Award on convective organization and climate explicitly stated understanding the physics of self-aggregation as one of its objectives and discussed addressing that question through the use of full-physics cloud system resolving models.