Abstract
Moisture quasi-equilibrium theory postulates that the instability index,
a measure of low to mid-tropospheric moist convective instability, is
inversely proportional to saturation fraction, a good proxy for
precipitation. We looked at thermodynamic properties for 16 convective
events from dropsonde data collected during the field project
Organization of Tropical East Pacific Convection (OTREC). OTREC2019
performed 22 flights in the Eastern Pacific and Southwest Caribbean out
of Costa Rica using the NSF/NCAR Gulfstream V aircraft. Convective
available potential energy and saturation fraction show weak
anti-correlation, while the instability index and saturation fraction
are more strongly anti-correlated. This supports the moisture
quasi-equilibrium hypothesis. Vertical mass flux profiles are calculated
for all 16 convective events (8 convective cases in the tropical Eastern
Pacific, 5 off the Pacific coast of Colombia and 3 in the Southwest
Caribbean). Every developing convective case has a bottom-heavy vertical
mass flux profile and every decaying case has top-heavy profile.