The Green Ocean: Precipitation Insights from the GoAmazon2014/5 Experiment

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Description

This study summarizes the precipitation properties collected during the GoAmazon2014/5 campaign near Manaus in central Amazonia, Brazil. Precipitation comparisons, summary radar rainfall relationships and self-consistency concepts from a coupled disdrometer and radar wind profiler site are presented. The properties of Amazon cumulus and associated stratiform precipitation (accumulations) are discussed, including segregations according to seasonal (Wet/Dry regime) variability, cloud echo top height and possible aerosol influences on the apparent oceanic character of the precipitation drop size distributions. Overall, we observe that the Amazon precipitation straddles behaviors found during previous ARM tropical deployments, with distributions favoring higher concentrations of smaller drops than ARM continental examples. Oceanic type precipitation characteristics are predominantly observed during the Amazon Wet season. An exploration of the controls on Wet season precipitation properties reveals that wind direction, as compared with other standard radiosonde thermodynamic parameters or aerosol count/regime classifications performed at the ARM site, provides a good predictor for those Wet season Amazon events having an oceanic character for their precipitation drop size distributions.