CROC

CROC - Convective Radio Occultations Campaign

1 February 2012 - 31 December 2014

Lead Scientist: Riccardo Biondi

Observatory: TWP , SGP

This campaign acquired in situ measurements (cloud base, cloud top, profiles of backscatter, temperature and water vapor) co-located with the Global Positioning System (GPS) Radio Occultations (ROs) tangent point, during convective systems in order to assess the contribution of any atmospheric process and parameter to the variation of the RO bending angle. The RO bending angle contained interesting information in order to detect the convective systems cloud top and their thermal structure and, a deep knowledge of this parameter, allowed: - getting a good understanding of the role of convection in the climate changes; - determining the thermal structure and composition of the UTLS (both in the tropics and in the extratropics); - linking the GPS RO signal to the intensity of the storm; - characterizing the deep convective cloud top.