Analysis of precipitation and convection in the west Pacific during the PISTON field campaign
type: CreativeWork
description: Tropical convection is a meteorological phenomenon with important impacts on the atmosphere, both locally and globally. Consequently, it has been an intensely studied topic for many years. Importantly, several ship-based field campaigns have taken place over tropical oceans. Such field campaigns are vital to the advancement of knowledge in this field, as meteorological observations over these open oceans are otherwise scant or non-existent. The latest project to examine tropical convection is the Propagation of Intraseasonal Oscillations (PISTON) field campaign, which took place in the western North Pacific in the late-summer and early-fall of 2018 and 2019. On board the PISTON ships was the SEA-POL weather radar, the first polarimetric weather radar designed specifically for deployment at sea. In addition to taking traditional radar measurements of precipitation intensity and velocity, SEA-POL's polarimetric measurements also provide insights into the size, shape, and composition of hydrometeors within precipitating systems. By combining SEA-POL's unique measurements with other meteorological datasets, this work presented in this dissertation provides new insights in tropical convection in the Pacific warm pool. Chapter 2 of this dissertation provides an overview of the variability in convection observed during the PISTON cruises, and relates this variability to large-scale atmospheric conditions. Using an objective classification algorithm, precipitation features are identified and labeled by their size (isolated, sub-MCS, MCS) and degree of convective organization (nonlinear, linear). It is shown that although large mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) occurred infrequently (present in 13% of radar scans), they contributed a disproportionately large portion (56%) of the total rain volume. Conversely, small isolated features were present in 91% of scans, yet these features contributed just 11% of the total rain volume, with the bulk of the rainfall owing to warm ra…
abstract: Tropical convection is a meteorological phenomenon with important impacts on the atmosphere, both locally and globally. Consequently, it has been an intensely studied topic for many years. Importantly, several ship-based field campaigns have taken place over tropical oceans. Such field campaigns are vital to the advancement of knowledge in this field, as meteorological observations over these open oceans are otherwise scant or non-existent. The latest project to examine tropical convection is the Propagation of Intraseasonal Oscillations (PISTON) field campaign, which took place in the western North Pacific in the late-summer and early-fall of 2018 and 2019. On board the PISTON ships was the SEA-POL weather radar, the first polarimetric weather radar designed specifically for deployment at sea. In addition to taking traditional radar measurements of precipitation intensity and velocity, SEA-POL's polarimetric measurements also provide insights into the size, shape, and composition of hydrometeors within precipitating systems. By combining SEA-POL's unique measurements with other meteorological datasets, this work presented in this dissertation provides new insights in tropical convection in the Pacific warm pool. Chapter 2 of this dissertation provides an overview of the variability in convection observed during the PISTON cruises, and relates this variability to large-scale atmospheric conditions. Using an objective classification algorithm, precipitation features are identified and labeled by their size (isolated, sub-MCS, MCS) and degree of convective organization (nonlinear, linear). It is shown that although large mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) occurred infrequently (present in 13% of radar scans), they contributed a disproportionately large portion (56%) of the total rain volume. Conversely, small isolated features were present in 91% of scans, yet these features contributed just 11% of the total rain volume, with the bulk of the rainfall owing to warm ra…
author: Chudler, Kyle, author
author: Rutledge, Steven, advisor
author: Bell, Michael, committee member
author: Maloney, Eric, committee member
author: Reising, Steven, committee member
language: eng
language: English
date published: 2022
date modified: 2026-07-27T19:13:02Z
provider: Colorado State University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Colorado State University. Libraries

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10217/235287

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.25675/3.02389