Observations of Temperature in the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere of Tropical Weather Disturbances

Abstract

Abstract Microwave temperature profiler (MTP) data are analyzed to document temperature signatures in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere that accompany Atlantic tropical weather disturbances. The MTP was deployed on the National Science Foundation–National Center for Atmospheric Research Gulfstream V (GV) aircraft during the Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud-Systems in the Tropics (PREDICT) in August and September 2010. Temporal variations in cold-point temperature compared with infrared cloud-top temperature reveal that organized deep convection penetrated to near or beyond the cold point for each of the four disturbances that developed into a tropical cyclone. Relative to the lower-tropospheric circulation center, MTP and dropsonde data confirmed a stronger negative radial gradient of temperature in the upper troposphere (10–13 km) of developing disturbances prior to genesis compared with nondeveloping disturbances. The MTP data revealed a somewhat higher and shallower area of relative warmth near the center when compared with dropsonde data. MTP profiles through anvil cloud depicted cooling near 15 km and warming in the lower stratosphere near the time of maximum coverage of anvil clouds shortly after sunrise. Warming occurred through a deep layer of the upper troposphere toward local noon, presumably associated with radiative heating in cloud. The temperature signatures of anvil cloud above 10-km altitude contributed to the radial gradient of temperature because of the clustering of deep convection near the center of circulation. However, it is concluded that these signatures may be more a result of properties of convection than a direct distinguishing factor of genesis.