ALBERT

Description: Updraft characteristics constrain convective mass flux, hydrometeor growth and precipitation efficiency and contribute to the spatial redistribution of energy, momentum, moisture, and aerosols in the troposphere. The impact of environmental parameters like instability, relative humidity, and vertical wind shear on convective updrafts characteristics, though important, remains poorly understood. Moreover, the relationships between updraft characteristics and cloud microphysical properties are a cause of uncertainty in cloud parameterizations for weather and climate models. The Experiment of Sea Breeze Convection, Aerosols, Precipitation and Environment (ESCAPE) campaign (2022) sampled isolated convective systems developing in different meteorological regimes in the vicinity of Houston. In this presentation the in-situ observations of cloud microphysics, vertical motion and airborne radars from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Convair-580 aircraft are used with ground-based radars to quantify the macrophysical and microphysical properties. During 13 research flights, the NRC Convair-580 sampled over 1100 individual updrafts, with at least 75 having strength 〉10 m s〈sup〉-1〈/sup〉 and a maximum strength of 29 m s〈sup〉-1〈/sup〉. The highest liquid water contents of 2 to 4 g m〈sup〉-3〈/sup〉 measured by bulk and scattering probes were frequently found to be coincident with the strongest updrafts. Further analysis of observed in-situ cloud microphysical properties as a function of updraft strength and environmental conditions, based on synoptic forcing, aerosol concentrations, soundings, surface observations and reanalysis data, will be presented.