Three Early Tropical Field Experiments

Abstract

Fifty years ago the Line Islands Experiment was launched to obtain in situ surface, soundings, and aircraft observations in a convectively active region of the tropical oceans close to the nadir point of the new geosynchronous meteorological satellite. Two related tropical field experiments, in 1968 and 1969, followed in the vicinity of Barbados in the western Atlantic. Component parts of these three field experiments are recalled in this presentation that resonated over the subsequent half century.

Observed Subcloud-Layer Moisture and Heat Budgets in the Trades

“…In both models and observations, clouds and the large-scale environment around Barbados were found to be representative of the Atlantic and Pacific trades (Medeiros and Nuijens 2016;Rasp et al 2020), suggesting that many inferences from EUREC 4 A observations are informative of trade wind regions globally. EUREC 4 A sets itself apart from previous field campaign that are, for instance, reviewed by Garstang et al (2019), through the intense and unbiased sampling; the use of novel observing strategies combined with improved and novel instrumentation; and the coincidence of satellite measurements with very high spatial resolution and temporal sampling (Bony et al 2017;Stevens et al 2021).…”