Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Diurnal precipitation over the oceans has been known to maximize in the night, in contrast to the afternoon maximum over most land areas. Kerns and Chen [2018] find that over the equatorial Indian Ocean, an afternoon secondary maximum exists in addition to the nocturnal maximum. This secondary maximum has rainfall rate larger than 10 millimeters per day. It occurs under conditions of light surface winds and suppressed phase of large-scale convection. This secondary maximum is caused by short-lived convective systems that are not captured in the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission satellite data.
Citation: Kerns, B. W., & Chen, S. S. [2018]. Diurnal Cycle of Precipitation and Cloud Clusters in the MJO and ITCZ over the Indian Ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 123. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD028589
—Minghua Zhang, Editor-in-Chief, JGR: Atmospheres
Text © 2018. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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