Mesoscale Organization of Maritime Tropical Convection: Large-Eddy Simulation

Hydrological and energy cycle of atmosphere involves a wide range of cloud scales, from shallow cumulus clouds to superclusters and MJO. The mesoscale organization of convection has been successfully studied by cloud resolving models (CRMs); however, because of high computational expense, the smaller-scale clouds, such as congestus and shallow, have not been generally resolved by CRM of deep convection and their effects have usually been treated as sub-grid scale process. The smaller-scale clouds have generally been a domain of large-eddy simulation (LES) models. In this study, we present the results of near-LES simulations of tropical maritime convection with 100 m horizontal resolution over the area 200 km across. Tests of the sensitivity to horizontal grid resolution indicate convergence of the results at 200m horizontal resolution. Interplay of deep clouds, congestus clouds, and cold pools is illustrated with high-resolution animated visualizations.Challenges associated with the so-called 'data tsunami' of large-scale computing will be discussed.