This is a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project. The PI will develop a unified understanding of how convective and meso-scale processes feedback on larger time and space scales in the tropics and subtropics. She will show how horizontal and vertical variations in diabatic heating associated with precipitating systems in the subtropics interact with the large-scale circulation. The central hypothesis is that the role of precipitating systems in the large-scale circulation is dependent on the convective activity and degree of baroclinicity of the environment, but that regardless of classification, precipitating systems in aggregate play an active role in the large-scale circulation of the subtropics. Long-term measurements of storms and storm structure are essential to better understand the upscale feedbacks of precipitating systems. Radar measurements will be taken during the course of the project. The educational objective of this project is to use observational research to enhance the learning experience of undergraduate students, who directly participate in it. Graduate students will participate in the research.
