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Updated: Dec 29, 2025

Surface Renewal: An Advanced Micrometeorological Method for Measuring and Processing Field-Scale Energy Flux Density Data
Published on: December 12, 2013
An Observational View of Relationships Between Moisture Aggregation, Cloud, and Radiative Heating Profiles
Matthew D Lebsock1, Tristan S L'Ecuyer2, Robert Pincus3,4
11Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 USA.
Abstract:
Data from several coincident satellite sensors are analyzed to determine the dependence of cloud and precipitation characteristics of tropical regions on the variance in the water vapor field. Increased vapor variance is associated with decreased high cloud fraction and an enhancement of low-level radiative cooling in dry regions of the domain. The result is found across a range of sea surface temperatures and rain rates. This suggests the possibility of an enhanced low-level circulation feeding the moist convecting areas when vapor variance is large. These findings are consistent with idealized models of self-aggregation, in which the aggregation of convection is maintained by a combination of low-level radiative cooling in dry regions and mid-to-upper-level radiative warming in cloudy regions.
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