Diversity of Convective Updrafts during 5 Airborne Campaigns: Insights from a Large Dataset of km-Scale Simulations

Understanding the structural and dynamical properties of convective cores is essential to advancing our knowledge of deep convection. Convective cores are the primary engines for the vertical transport of heat and moisture, yet their small spatial scales and the scarcity of vertical velocity measurements make them difficult to observe and represent in numerical weather prediction and climate models.

This study aims to characterize the morphology and intensity of updrafts using a comprehensive dataset of more than 50 Meso-NH km-scale simulations of deep convection events that occurred during five airborne campaigns during which the RASTA (RAdar SysTem Airborne) radar was deployed: CADDIWA, EXAEDRE, HAIC Cayenne, HAIC Darwin, and MAESTRO. These high-resolution simulations encompass a wide spectrum of meteorological environments. We employ an advanced three-dimensional object detection algorithm to isolate convective cores. This volumetric approach allows us to capture the complex geometry of updrafts and the internal variability in vertical velocity.

We specifically investigate the dependence of updraft size and intensity on key environmental parameters using an object-oriented approach. We statistically analyze the distribution of updraft morphological and dynamical properties. Our results show that vertical extension is a driver of updraft intensity, with taller convective cores exhibiting higher vertical velocities. In contrast, the horizontal width of the cores has a significantly smaller impact on their peak intensity. The consequences of these findings for the development of convective parameterizations and for future satellite missions, such as C2OMODO (Convective Core Observations through MicrOwave Derivatives in the trOpics), will be discussed.