Mesoscale controls on trade-wind inversion structure and cloudiness during EUREC4A

Two thirds of variability in cloud cover in the trade-wind regions is associated with cloudiness near the top of the cloud layer, which mostly occurs in the form of stratiform layers. Stratiform inversion cloud is also the cloud component that changes most across different patterns of cloud organization and potentially also under climate change. Unfortunately, our understanding of the factors controlling the occurrence and lifetime of stratiform layers and how they link to the structure of the trade inversion is limited. Because the trade inversion can be as thin as 10-100m, even high-resolution large-eddy simulations have serious issues in accurately representing the sharpness of the inversion and its associated cloudiness. The EUREC⁴A field campaign released >850 dropsondes from the HALO aircraft upstream Barbados in January-February 2020 in 200 km diameter circles, constituting a sounding dataset which lends itself particularly well to investigate the structure and variability of the trade inversion. Here we use the dropsonde data in conjunction with lidar-retrieved cloud-top height distributions and high resolution large-eddy simulations (the cloud botany ensemble) to investigate controls on inversion strength and height, document their variability at different scales, and assess their connection with cloudiness.