Convective transport of mass and energy in severe storms over the United States—an estimate from a geostationary altitude

D. N. Sikdar; V. E. Suomi; C. E. Anderson

doi:10.3402/tellusa.v22i5.10247

Convective transport of mass and energy in severe storms over the United States—an estimate from a geostationary altitude

Tellus

Volume 22 (1970): Issue 5

By: D. N. Sikdar, V. E. Suomi and C. E. Anderson

Open Access

|Jan 1970

Abstract

Some important characteristics of intense convection associated with tornado vortices are described in a case study based on photographs of the United States on April 19 and 23, 1968, that were transmitted from NASA’s geosynchronous satellite, ATS-3. The growth rates of a number of convection complexes as estimated from the satellite cloud photographs are studied. Based on a three-layer convection model, the upward fluxes of mass and energy in these severe storms are computed. The computed fluxes seem to be higher by at least one order of magnitude than in a moderate thunderstorm (Brown, 1967).

It is suggested that the pronounced growth rate of a convection complex as estimated on the ATS-3 satellite photographs should be an indication of the presence of severe storm cells below the cirrus canopy.

References

Anderson , C. E . 1960 . A study of the pulsating growth of cumulus clouds . Geophysical research paper no. 72. Air Force Cambridges Res. Lab ., Mass ., 136 pp .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Borovikov , A. M. et al. 1963 . Cloud physics . U.S. Dept. of Commerce , Washington , D.C .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Braham , R. R . 1952 . The water and energy budgets of the thunderstorm and their relation to thun-derstorm development , J. Meteor ., 227 – 242 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Brown , R. A . 1967 . Mass and available energy in growing convective cloud, J. Atm. Sc i . 24 , 308 – 311 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Fujita , T. & Grandoso , H . 1966 . Split of a thunder-storm into anticyclonic and cyclonic storms and their motion as determined from numerical model experiments. SMRP research paper no. 62 , University of Chicago .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Higuchi , K . 1965 . A three-dimensional study of cumulus cloud by the use of aerial photographs of the clouds and their shadows . J. Atmos. Sci . 22 , 440 – 447 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Ludlum , F. H . 1966 . Cumulus and cumulonimbus convection , Tellus 8 , 4, 687 .
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Sikdar , D. N . 1969 . Convective heat transport over the tropical mid-Pacific as estimated from a geosynchronous satellite altitude. Ph.D. thesis, The University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc. Sikdar, D. N. & Suomi, V. E. 1968. An objective technique of evaluating tropical mesoscale heat transport in the tropics from geosynchronous satellite photographs. Studies in atmospheric energetics based on aerospace probings. 1968 An-nual Report, Department of Meteorology, The University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
The Thunderstorm, 1959. US Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
US Department of Commerce , 1968 . Storm Data, vol. 10, 4.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article

Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v22i5.10247 | Journal eISSN: 3035-9554

Journal RSS Feed

Language: English

Page range: 521 - 532

Submitted on: Apr 11, 1969

Accepted on: May 5, 1970

Published on: Jan 1, 1970

Published by: Stockholm University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 1970 D. N. Sikdar, V. E. Suomi, C. E. Anderson, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 22 (1970): Issue 5