Tropical Convection: A Half Century Quest for Understanding

Explore a comprehensive lecture on tropical convection and its impact on global weather patterns. Delve into the tropics' role as the "boiler box" of the atmosphere, examining how tropical clouds distribute solar energy and drive global circulation. Investigate the evolution of understanding tropical cloud formations through major field expeditions and satellite missions like TRMM and CloudSat. Learn about the variability in tropical circulation, including phenomena such as El Niño, monsoons, and tropical cyclones. Discover the advances made in representing clouds accurately in global weather and climate models, and gain insights into the interactions between tropical clouds and larger-scale atmospheric motions. This Bjerknes Lecture, presented at the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting, offers a half-century perspective on the quest to understand tropical convection and its significance in atmospheric sciences.