Abstract
Abstract The wind fields associated with cloud clusters observed during the Global Atmospheric Research Program's Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE) are investigated. A compositing procedure is devised to isolate the cluster circulations. Satellite-observed cloud cover estimates by Cox and Griffith form the basis for the identification and classification of clusters and for the determination of their life cycles. The compositing criteria focus on the upper-tropospheric portions of anvil clouds that are a prominent feature of cloud clusters. The compositing procedure is applied to a set of objectively analyzed upper-air winds for Phase 3 of GATE prepared by K. V. Ooyama and J.-H. Chu. The results show that slow-moving cloud clusters tend to form in regions of relatively small vertical wind shear and that the shear at the cluster center decreases during the cluster life cycle. Squall clusters, on the other hand, have significantly larger lower-tropospheric shear. Changes in the total horizontal wind field ...
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