- cloud systems and atmospheric environment from observations
- Lagrangian transport to determine cirrus origin and life cycle
- process modelling and large-scale parameterizations
- radiative transfer
UTCC PROES aims to develop new diagnostic methods using existing observations in order to examine the processes that detrain UT clouds from convection and the interconnection between convection and the radiative heating induced by these outflowing anvils. This heating will be affected by at least 3 factors: (i) areal coverage of UT clouds, (ii) horizontal cloud emissitivity structure within the UTC systems and (iii) vertical structure.
Existing data bases from TRMM, Megha-Tropiques and ISCCP (in particular statistics on weather states) have been extensively used to study tropical mesoscale convective systems (see references),
UTCC PROES brings in a new data base of UT cloud systems (Protopapadaki et al. 2017), based on cloud properties from IR sounders (AIRS and IASI), reliably identifying cirrus day and night. It provides the horizontal emissivity structure within these systems and is being complemented by CALIPSO-CloudSat lidar-radar track vertical information, thermodynamic and dynamic information from meteorological reanalyses, and information on the life cycle stage from TRMM radar and geostationary imagers.