Relationship between latent and radiative heating fields of Tropical cloud systems using synergistic satellite observations

Abstract. In order to investigate the relationship between latent and radiative heating (LH, RH), particularly within mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), we used synergistic satellite-derived data from active instruments. Given the sparse sampling of these observations, we expanded the Spectral LH profiles derived from the Tropical Rain Measurement Mission (TRMM-SLH) by applying artificial neural network regressions on Clouds from InfraRed Sounder data and meteorological reanalyses, following a similar approach as for the expansion of the RH profiles. The zonal averages of vertically integrated LH (LP) at 1:30 AM and PM LT align well with those from the full diurnal sampling of TRMM–SLH over ocean. For Upper Tropospheric (UT) clouds releasing large latent heat, the surface temperature has a larger impact on the atmospheric cloud radiative effect (ACRE) in dry than in humid environments, while for lower clouds, producing relatively small latent heat, humidity plays a large role in enhanced ACRE. The distribution of UT clouds in the LP–ACRE plane shows a very large spread in ACRE for small LP, which is gradually reduced towards larger LP. The mean ACRE per MCS increases with LP, ranging from 50 to 115 W m^-2. As expected, the shapes of the LH profiles of mature MCSs show that larger, more organized MCSs have a larger contribution of stratiform rain than the smaller MCSs. Convective organization enhances the mean ACRE of the MCS by up to 20 W m^-2.