An observational perspective of convective momentum transport

Abstract

Shallow cumulus clouds interact with their environment and redistribute heat, moisture, and momentum (wind speed and direction) in the atmosphere. The same convective plume that forms the cloud is for a large extent responsible for this transport. Modeling the effect of shallow cumulus clouds is challenging because these clouds are smaller than can be directly simulated by models. Weather and climate models therefore rely on empirical functions to represent the effect of sub-grid processes such as the turbulent and convective transport. The transport of moisture and heat through cumulus convection has received a lot of attention from the atmospheric science community. Momentum transport has been studied far less, even though a few studies indicate that momentum transport may have a large influence on local weather as well as the large-scale circulation.