RICO: Rain in Cumulus Over the Ocean

Summary

Shallow, maritime, cumulus convection is one of the most prevalent cloud types on the planet. Trade wind cumuli typically extend to no greater than 4 km altitude, the height of the tropical trade wind inversion, and are dominated by warm rain processes. They are ubiquitous over much of the tropical oceans, and characterizing their properties is important to understanding the global energy balance and climate. The objective of RICO in the broadest sense is to characterize and understand the properties of trade wind cumulus at all scales, with particular emphasis on determining the importance of precipitation. All range of scales from the microphysical/cloud scale, to the cloud-interaction scale, to the ensemble cloud field scale are inextricably linked and the nature of these linkages is an important aspect of RICO.