Land‐ocean differences in tropical deep convective clouds: intercomparison of DYAMOND simulations and CloudSat observations

Takahashi, H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0578-8605, Wu, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8447-8180, Smalley, M. A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0731-6759, Stephens, G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9860-0287, Suzuki, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5315-2452 and Posselt, D. J. (2025) Land‐ocean differences in tropical deep convective clouds: intercomparison of DYAMOND simulations and CloudSat observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130 (23). e2025JD044688. ISSN 2169-8996 doi: 10.1029/2025jd044688

Abstract/Summary

This study investigates how deep convective clouds and their surrounding environments are represented in the DYnamics of the Atmospheric general circulation Modeled On Non‐hydrostatic Domains (DYAMOND) simulations by comparing them with CloudSat observations across three tropical “chimney zones”: Tropical Africa, Tropical Amazonia, and the Tropical Warm Pool (TWP). These regions, spanning a spectrum of land‐ocean contrasts, exhibit distinct environmental and convective characteristics. While DYAMOND simulations capture environmental differences among the regions, biases persist in representing convective intensity and precipitation dynamics. The simulations overestimate convective intensity in the TWP, likely due to higher‐than‐realistic conversion efficiencies of potential energy to kinetic energy. Precipitation formation also deviates from observations, occurring at higher altitudes with weak vertical velocities, indicating misrepresentations in cloud microphysics and updraft dynamics. These findings highlight the need for improved coupling of cloud dynamics and microphysics in global models to better simulate deep convection and its environmental interactions.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/127676
Identification Number/DOI	10.1029/2025jd044688
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	American Geophysical Union
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