CONVECTIVE WAKES IN THE EQUATORIAL WESTERN PACIFIC DURING TOGA

The evolution of convective wakes was studied using composite time ser ies calculated from data collected in the western Pacific warm pool du ring a pilot cruise and intensive observation period (IOP) of the Trop ical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE). Hourly averaged observations from 42 convective wa kes were used to compute wake-relative composite time series of the bu lk meteorological variables, as well as sensible and latent heat fluxe s. These analyses show great similarities between the convective wake characteristics of the pilot cruise and the IOP, despite differences i n season and location. This result, combined with a strong correlation between individual wakes and the composite time series, demonstrates the representativeness of the composites. TOGA convective wakes were f ound to cause a significant decrease in air temperature, a significant increase in wind speed, and thus significant increases in sensible an d latent heat fluxes, which is similar to GATE results. Decreases in s ea surface temperature, mixing ratio in the atmospheric surface layer, and sea surface saturation mixing ratio were also observed to accompa ny the convective wakes; the bulk transfer coefficients, in contrast, were found to remain nearly constant.