Anagrafe della ricerca

Convection is a vital process which helps to redistribute energy in the Earth atmosphere with different implications in terms of large-scale atmospheric circulation and vertical uplift of water vapor, aerosol, and trace gases. This process is often conducive to cloud formation affecting the production of high clouds in the form of cloud anvils, which represent a key element in the high cloud radiative feedbacks and provide a substantial amount of precipitation often connected to severe weather events worldwide. Nevertheless, the topic still deserves detailed studies as it also underpins the convection representation in weather and climate models, where progresses are required in understanding of convective mass flux (CMF) within storms and its representation. In this respect recent works illustrated the benefits of merging the highly temporally resolved measurements from GEO platforms and the detailed, range-resolved snapshots provided by spaceborne radars in LEO orbit, and the usefulness of a synergistic use of passive and active sensors from the A-train satellite constellation for the CMF estimate. The intent of this project is to further explore this concept benefiting from two new satellite missions, the EarthCARE (EC) mission with the high sensitivity 94-GHz Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) with Doppler capability and METEOSAT Third Generation platforms with the Flexible Combined Imager sensor. Through their synergistic exploitation the project will elaborate two science products (SP). SP1 will be devoted to CMF estimates from EC with GEO IR observation support for CPR dealiasing, and SP2 will estimate the anvil total mass and ice water path (IWP) probability density functions via a deep learning algorithm applied to series of GEO IR images and trained with the ESA Level 2 IWP EC multi-instrument. It is worthy of remark that products like these are not foreseen in the scheduled product portfolio of the two missions. SP1 and 2 will be generated for the first 6 months of EC mission, providing a convection dataset that will be further substantiated by environmental properties and EUMETSAT NWC SAF products of convection and high resolution wind. The effectiveness of the NWC SAF products will be evaluated in the first phase of the project in the frame of the TRACER field campaign aimed at an unprecedent characterization of the lifecycle of convective cloud systems and the dynamics of updraft and downdrafts by a suite of satellite, ground-based, and modeling instruments. Finally, a list of convective case studies fully characterized via SP1, SP2, environmental properties, and NWC SAF products will be selected and analysed to 1) evaluate the impact of environmental properties on CMF in tropical and extra-tropical convective storms as a function of storm type and lifecycle; 2) evaluate the relationship between anvil clouds and CMF and upper level divergences; 3) correlate the lightning activity with the upper level dynamic of thunderstorms.