涩里番

Mesoscale dynamics and moist convection: cumulus convection is capable of producing severe local weather and plays a key role in the climate system. Because cumuli form at very small spatiotemporal scales and are inherently turbulent and chaotic, they are poorly resolved in weather and climate models and challenging to physically interpret. These challenges render cumulus convection and its collective effects highly uncertain in forecast models. Such uncertainty can be partially mitigated by ensemble methods (for convection-permitting regional weather models) or well-formulated physical parameterization schemes (for global weather and climate models).

The initiation of cumulus clouds in a conditionally unstable atmosphere is often decided by mesoscale processes that lift air to its level of free convection (LFC). The dynamics of such processes (e.g., mountain flows, fronts, drylines, and outflow boundaries) are thus another topic of intensive study. However, lifting to the LFC is only a necessary condition for convection initiation鈥攐ther dynamical and microphysical processes (e.g., vertical wind shear, entrainment of dry environmental air, and the formation of ice) control whether such a cloud will ascend sufficiently deep to produce precipitation.聽 My research uses a combination of observations and models of varying complexity to investigate the dynamics, cloud microphysics, and predictability of moist convection. It aims to quantify key related processes using simple mathematical models, which facilitate conceptual understanding and may be used to improve cumulus parameterization schemes in large-scale models.