Fig. 2: The steady dynamics of dense convective cells allow predicting Trade Cumulus clouds’ location.
From: Not as random: the stable dynamics controlling shallow convective clouds
a Snapshot of the vertical velocity below the cloud base (average of the lowest 400 m), showing a field densely occupied with convective cells. Updrafts form along the cell walls, while downdrafts form in the center. The yellow line indicates the location of the vertical trace used to form the w-LHS shown in (b). b The w-LHS, a measure of the steadiness of the convective cells, where red stripes indicate updrafts and green downdrafts. The lifetime of many cells is comparable to that of the entire field (6 h). To demonstrate the predictive power of the stable dynamics, (c) shows cloud centroids accumulated over 3 h after the time of the snapshot in (a). Note the non-random cell structure of the forming clouds. d Cross-correlation between (a) and (c) reveals the similarity between the w-field and the clouds forming later. The correlation peak value in the center of the matrix exceeds 20σ of the correlation distribution, and the background correlation is almost isotropic.
