Convection, and its representation in the hierarchy of weather and climate models, is a recurring theme through the CLEX research programs. This theme was explored in a recent 1-day workshop held on June 21, 2018, at The University of Melbourne. It was attended by 27 CLEX and CLEX-affiliated researchers who gathered to discuss their ongoing work on convection.
Processes as diverse as northwest cloudbands, cumulus thermals, convectively generated gravity waves and tropical cyclones were explored. Geographically, the topics spanned from intraseasonal variability and diabatic heating in the Maritime Continent to open cellular convection in the southern ocean.
We discussed models with horizontal grid lengths of hundreds of metres to tens of kilometres, or reduced to intriguingly simple sets of differential equations, as well as hearing about novel observation based studies. The overarching theme in all of these topics is the challenge of accurately representing convection and its relationship with the background conditions in weather and climate models – a challenge which needs to be solved to properly characterise current and future climate extremes.