Graphical Abstract

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Takemi, T., 2015: Relationship between cumulus activity and environmental moisture during the CINDY2011/DYNAMO field experiment as revealed from convection-resolving simulations. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 93A, 41-58.
https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2015-035   Graphical Abstract with highlights

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Highlights:

• This study investigates the relationship between cumulus convection and environmental moisture in the tropical Indian Ocean by conducting convection-resolving simulations through the nesting capability with which the innermost domain has the 100-m grid resolution for the cases during the CINDY2011/DYNAMO period.
• The cloud cover whose tops exceed a middle level is shown to sharply increase with the increase in precipitable water vapor over about 55 mm. The increase in relative humidity in a lower layer results in the increase in cloud cover at a level above the humid layer.
• The existence of updraft cores that are less diluted with the environment is demonstrated, and contributes to the moistening of the environmental atmosphere. The updraft cores play a key role in the inter-relationship between cumulus convection and its environment, and are regarded as having a preconditioning influence for the convective initiation of MJO.