The first study to simultaneously investigate precipitation and cloud structures in tropical weather systems concludes observation systems significantly overestimate the height of raining clouds.
tropics
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Ocean Warming Resumes in the Tropical Pacific
The discovery of a decadal El Niño–like state associated with shifts in the Pacific trade winds could have important implications for predicting sea level in future decades.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Better Understanding of Tropical Cyclones
A new model of how anvil clouds form could improve short-term hurricane forecasts.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
What American Samoan Corals Tell About El Niño’s History
Samoan corals record how patterns of warm/cool and more/less salty in the equatorial Pacific changed in space and time over the last 500 years.
Posted inNews
Peruvian Mountain Birds Take an “Escalator to Extinction”
As the climate warms, tropical birds living in the mountains are retreating to higher elevations to avoid the heat. What happens when they run out of mountain slope to escape to?
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Diurnal Variation of Rainfall over the Equator Revisited
Radar data show an afternoon precipitation maximum in the equatorial Indian Ocean in addition to the nocturnal maximum; this occurs under light surface winds and suppressed large-scale convection.
Posted inNews
Congress Throws Tropical Forest Research Program a Lifeline
Climate researchers and ecologists laud the continuation of effort to fuse data from tropical forests with modeling.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Seasonal Leaf Production Is Key Control on Amazon Carbon Balance
Characterizing leaf phenology in process-based models reconciles both “dry season green-up” and drought controls on Amazonian carbon balance.
Posted inScience Updates
The Stratosphere and Its Role in Tropical Teleconnections
Joint SPARC Dynamics and Observations Workshop; Kyoto, Japan, 9–14 October 2017
Posted inScience Updates
Reconstructing Climate and Environment from Coral Archives
Tropical Coral Archives—Reconstructions of Climate and Environment Beyond the Instrumental Record at Society-Relevant Timescales; Bremen, Germany, 28 September 2017