GESTAR II Seminar Series, April 25 at 1:00pm

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 14:32:50 -0400
gestar2

Join us for a virtual seminar by Dr. Chuntao Liu, professor in atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. His talk is titled "Connections between convection and the stratosphere in tropics."

Date and Time: Tuesday, April 25, 2023 at 1:00pm

Join us via Teams.

Abstract:

Tropical convection can have various impacts on the stratosphere, and there are two long-standing questions regarding the connection between deep convection and the stratosphere in the tropics. Firstly, how do gravity waves from tropical convection modulate the dynamics in the stratosphere, such as the Quasi Biennial Oscillation (QBO)? Secondly, how much water vapor is transported into the stratosphere by deep convection penetrating the tropical tropopause?

This presentation utilizes 20+ years of Latent Heating (LH) retrievals from space-borne precipitation radars to estimate the momentum flux transported into the lower stratosphere by convection in the tropics. Despite uncertainties in the LH retrievals and the methodology used to derive momentum flux, the results provide a way to quantify the impact of tropical convection on the dynamics in the stratosphere at different time scales. The connection between the momentum flux transport into the lower stratosphere and the QBO is discussed.

Additionally, the impact of overshooting convection directly injecting water vapor into the lower stratosphere is discussed by combining 20 years of TRMM and GPM radar data with 18 years of AURA MLS water vapor observations. Overall, understanding the connections between convection and the tropical stratosphere is critical for improving our understanding of the atmosphere general circulation and climate variations.

Biography:

Dr. Chuntao Liu, professor in atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M - Corpus Christi, earned his Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences at the University of Wyoming in 2003. In the early 2000s he spent two seasons at McMurdo, Antarctica monitoring the stratospheric ozone with balloons. Then he joined the University of Utah as research assistant professor and associate professor before joining Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. His primary research interests are in the areas of satellite remote sensing of global precipitation, cloud, and severe weather events. Dr. Liu also maintains several instruments measuring the fair-weather electric field at Barrow, Alaska and Corpus Christi, and is a science team member of NASA precipitation science mission. His authorship includes 90+ peer-reviewed journal publications and 100+ conference presentations. Dr. Liu has served as the associate editor for the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres for a decade.

For more information on the GESTAR II Seminar Series, click here.