Tropical waves play an important role in the hydrologic cycle of multiple regions in the tropics, often develop into tropical cyclones, and have far-reaching impacts. In spite of this, numerous questions about their physics remain. Among these questions is how convection (rainfall) couples to the large-scale circulation, and what triggers convection in the first place.
Our research seeks to provide important insights on the organization of precipitation on these mechanisms by looking at the structure of tropical waves, and looking at how their circulations modulate the large-scale thermodynamic environment.