Observed Relations among the Hydrological Cycle Components over a Tropical Region

摘要: Atmospheric water vapour has a crucial role in regulating the greenhouse effect, cloud formation, rainfall, atmospheric energetics, weather, and climate in any region. Though the variations of water vapour, clouds, and rainfall are strongly intertwined, investigations on the coupled variations among these components of hydrological cycle are extremely sparse. This knowledge gap is a limitation in understanding and modelling cloud formation and precipitation processes. Simultaneous and collocated multi-year (2011-2017) observations of the high resolution altitude profiles of atmospheric humidity and cloud liquid water content (CLWC) using microwave radiometer profiler (MRP), cloud occurrence using IR radiometer, and rain rate using disdrometer averaged at time intervals of 10 min at Thumba, a tropical coastal station located at the southwest coast of India, provide an opportunity to quantify the coupled …