THIS PROPOSAL WILL USE OBSERVATIONS FROM THE RADARS ABOARD THE TRMM GPM AND CLOUDSAT SATELLITES TO DIAGNOSE THE VERTICAL PRECIPITATION STRUCTURES AND LATENT HEATING PROFILES ASSOCIATED WITH SMCS AND TO DETERMINE HOW WELL REANALYSES ARE CAPTURING THESE LARGE-SCALE LOW-LEVEL CIRCULATION FEATURES. A SUITE OF CMIP6 MODELS WILL ALSO BE ANALYZED IN TERMS OF THEIR SMC STRUCTURES AND LATENT HEATING AND A NEWLY DEVELOPED GCM PRECIPITATION RADAR SIMULATOR WILL BE APPLIED TO THE CMIP6 MODELS. THE OUTPUT REFLECTIVITY FROM THE SIMULATOR CAN BE MORE DIRECTLY COMPARED TO OBSERVATIONS FROM RADAR AND WILL GREATLY ENHANCE THE USE OF THE TRMM AND GPM RADAR DATA SETS IN CLIMATE MODEL ASSESSMENT AND IMPROVEMENT.