| Session Details | |
| Section | AS - Atmospheric Sciences |
| Session Title | Theory, Observations and Modelling of Maritime Continent Convection |
| Main Convener | Dr. Masaki Katsumata (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Japan) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Muhammad Eeqmal Hassim (Meteorological Service Singapore, Singapore) Dr. Hanh Nguyen (Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Australia) |
| Session Description | The Maritime Continent is a complex archipelago of large and small islands surrounded by very warm shallow seas. It lies at the heart of the “tropical warm pool”, straddled between two major oceans (Indian and Pacific) and two major landmasses (mainland Asia and Australia). While weather activity over the Maritime Continent is known to have substantial global climatic significance, current climate and NWP models struggle to capture the spatial distribution and variability of convection and rainfall over the region on diurnal to seasonal timescales, leading to major biases in the simulated climate. Such poor model performance is likely due to the under-representation of localised circulations associated with coastlines and topography, the mis-representation of moist convective processes and the lack of mesoscale convective organisation that is often embedded within a larger envelope of synoptic activity associated with the structure of the prevailing mean flow. Better understanding on what controls the passage of the Madden Julian Oscillation, the modulation of convection due to other transient disturbances (e.g., equatorially-trapped waves) and the climate drivers governing the occurrence of convective extremes within the Maritime Continent would contribute to reduce model bias. While progress has been made by (i) increasing model resolution and (ii) improving the parameterisation of moist convection and its microphysics, issues still remain. This session invites and welcomes contributions from theoretical, observational and modelling studies that focus on convection-related processes, its variability and the interactions occurring across a range of spatial and temporal scales within the Maritime Continent. Papers relevant to recent and planned field programs such as the Years of the Maritime Continent are particularly encouraged. The goal is to assess our current state of understanding and identify the knowledge gaps so as to inform future scientific emphasis on the Maritime Continent region and help break the tropical barrier to global weather and climate prediction. |