Land-Ocean Differences in Tropical Deep Convective Clouds: Intercomparison of DYAMOND simulations and A-Train Observations

This study investigates how deep convective clouds and their surrounding environments are represented in DYAMOND simulations by comparing them with CloudSat observations across three tropical "chimney zones"—Tropical Africa, Tropical Amazonia, and the Tropical Warm Pool (TWP). These regions, spanning a spectrum of land-ocean contrasts, exhibit distinct environmental and convective characteristics. While DYAMOND simulations capture environmental differences among the regions, biases persist in representing convective intensity and precipitation dynamics. The simulations overestimate convective intensity in the TWP, likely due to higher-than-realistic conversion efficiencies of potential energy to kinetic energy. Precipitation formation also deviates from observations, occurring at higher altitudes with weak vertical velocities, indicating misrepresentations in cloud microphysics and updraft dynamics. These findings highlight the need for improved coupling of cloud dynamics and microphysics in global models to better simulate deep convection and its environmental interactions.