Baidu, M, Schwendike, J, Marsham, J orcid.org/0000-0003-3219-8472 et al. (1 more author) (Cover date: August 2022) Effects of Vertical Wind Shear on intensities of Mesoscale Convective Systems over West and Central Africa. Atmospheric Science Letters, 23 (8). e1094. ISSN 1530-261X
Abstract
Vertical wind shear is known to play a key role in the organization and intensity of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) in West and Central Africa. A decadal increase in vertical wind shear has recently been linked to a decadal increase in intense MCSs over the Sahel. Here, the effects of vertical wind shear on MCSs over West and Central Africa have been investigated using a 10-year (1998–2007) MCS dataset. Strong vertical shear is associated with long-lived, moderate speed, moderate size and cold (deep) storms with high rain rates. The observed cloud top heights of storms over the oceans are closer to their level of neutral buoyancies (LNBs) compared to their land counterparts on the same latitudes. We hypothesize that this is due to greater entrainment dilution over land compared to storms over the ocean. Vertical shear allows storm anvils to reach higher altitudes relative to their LNB, this is consistent with the colder top storms over the Sahel (a region with a high vertical shear) compared to the Congo, despite a higher LNB in the Congo. It is not possible to diagnose the exact mechanisms for this impact of vertical shear from the data, but it is consistent with recent work showing that shear reduces entrainment dilution of squall-line updrafts. We conclude that modelling impacts of vertical shear, which are normally missed in convection parameterizations, are not only important for predictions of high impact weather, but also for modelling the mean distribution of storm heights across Africa.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. Atmospheric Science Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Meteorological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | brightness temperature, cloud top height, mesoscale convective system, vertical wind shear, West Africa |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/P021077/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 11 Apr 2022 09:32 |
Last Modified: | 16 Aug 2023 14:48 |
Published Version: | https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley Open Access |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/asl.1094 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:185572 |