Properties of Tropical Convection Observed by Millimeter-Wave Radar Systems

This paper describes the results of analysis of over 825 000 profiles of millimeter-wave radar (MWR) reflectivities primarily collected by zenith-pointing surface radars observing tropical convection associated with various phases of activity of the large-scale tropical circulation. The data principally analyzed in this paper come from surface observations obtained at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Manus site during active and break episodes of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) and from observations collected from a shipborne radar during an active phase of the monsoon over the Indian Ocean during the Joint Air–Sea Monsoon Interaction Experiment. It was shown, for example, in a histogram regime analysis that the MWR data produce statistics on convection regimes similar in most respects to the analogous regime analysis of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission radar–radiometer observations. Attenuation of the surface MWRs by heavy precipitation, however, incorrectly shifts a small fraction of the deeper precipitation modes into the shallow modes of precipitation. The principal findings are the following. (i) The cloud and precipitation structures of the different convective regimes are largely identical regardless of the mode of synoptic forcing, that is, regardless of whether the convection occurred during an active phase of the MJO, a transition phase of the MJO, or in an active monsoon period. What changes between these synoptically forced modes of convection are the relative frequencies of occurrences of the different storm regimes. (ii) The cloud structures associated with the majority of cases of observed precipitation (ranging in occurrence from 45% to 53% of all precipitation profiles) were multilayered structures regardless of the mode of synoptic forcing. The predominant multilayered cloud mode was of higher-level cirrus of varying thickness overlying cumulus congestus–like convection. (iii) The majority of water accumulated (i.e., 53%– 63%) over each of the periods assigned to the active monsoon (5 days of data), the active MJO (38 days of data), and the transition MJO (53 days of data) fell from these multiple-layered cloud systems. (iv) Solar transmittances reveal that significantly less sunlight (reductions of about 30%–50%) reaches the surface in the precipitating regimes than reaches the surface under drizzle and cloud-only conditions, suggesting that the optical thicknesses of precipitation-bearing clouds significantly exceeds those of nonprecipitating clouds.