CONVECTIVE MASS FLUX LIES AT THE HEART OF THE CUMULUS PARAMETERIZATION OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATE MODELS (GCMS). YET NO GLOBAL OBSERVATION OF THIS CRITICAL PARAMETER IS AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. TO CORRECT THE SITUATION PI AND HIS COLLABORATOR PROPOSED A NOVEL SATELLITE-BASED APPROACH TO ESTIMATE CONVECTIVE MASS FLUX AS WELL AS THE LARGE-SCALE [O(100KM)] TOTAL MASS FLUX. THE METHOD USES A SUITE OF SYNERGISTIC SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS (TRMM CLOUDSAT CALIPSO MODIS AIRS AND QUICKSCAT) TO CONSTRAIN IN A BAYESIAN MANNER THE PLUME MODEL SOLUTIONS DRIVEN BY AIRS/AMSU SOUNDING. INITIAL RESULTS AS REPORTED IN TWO RECENT PUBLICATIONS ARE PROMISING. THE PROPOSED WORK BUILDS UPON THESE ACTIVITIES AND SEEKS TO ACHIEVE THE FOLLOWING GOALS: 1) ASSESS THE MASS FLUX ESTIMATES USING GROUND-BASED DOPPLER RADAR MEASUREMENTS 2) ASSESS THE MASS FLUX ESTIMATE TECHNIQUE AND INTERPRET DIFFERENT MASS FLUX COMPONENTS USING SYNTHETIC DATA GENERATED BY THE GODDARD CUMULUS ENSEMBLE (GCE) 3) USE THE ESTIMATED CONVECTIVE MASS FLUXES AND LARGE-SCALE TOTAL MASS FLUX TO EVALUATE GCM (GISS MODEL-E) SIMULATIONS OF TROPICAL CONVECTION AND 4) CONDUCT SENSITIVITY EXPERIMENTS TO IDENTIFY WAYS TO IMPROVE THE GCM CUMULUS PARAMETERIZATION SCHEMES. THE PROPOSED STUDIES ARE WELL ALIGNED WITH THE NASA MODELING ANALYSIS AND PREDICTION (MAP) THEMES. ASSESSING SATELLITE-BASED ESTIMATES OF CONVECTIVE MASS FLUX USING GCE AND GROUND-BASED RADAR DATA PREPARES AN IMPORTANT DIAGNOSTIC TOOL FOR STUDYING CLOUDS IN EARTH SYSTEM MODELS . USE OF THE ESTIMATED CONVECTIVE MASS FLUXES TO EVALUATE GCM SIMULATIONS OF TROPICAL CONVECTION AND TO IMPROVE CUMULUS PARAMETERIZATIONS REPRESENTS AN ADVANCED METHOD FOR MODEL EVALUATION WHICH IS EXPLICITLY CALLED FOR IN THE SOLICITATION AND ADDRESSES KEY CLOUD PROCESSES AND THEIR REPRESENTATION IN ESM.

Research Foundation Of The City University Of New York, New York NY

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