hurricanes1234 wrote:SouthDadeFish wrote:While convection is waning as can be expected with this time of day, I'm noticing improving outflow to the south of the system.
When is the Diurnal Maximum and Diurnal Minimum? I'm fairly new to this.
Here's a more technical response of the mechanisms at play with DMIN and DMAX that I wrote a few months ago.
The earth's crust has a high heat capacity, allowing it to absorb solar radiation throughout the day. Through conduction, the earths crust begins to heat up the air directly above it, which heats up the cool air column directly above that. While the sun is at its highest point at noon (and thus solar radiation at its most concentrated strength), maximum solar heat lags behind by several hours, as the ground and air layer must first absorb heat before it can begin to radiate heat. When the amount of incoming solar radiation equals the amount of outgoing radiation (around 3-5pm), we reach our daily high temperature.
CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) is at a maximum during the day due to this daytime heating, which is why we see a convective maximum late in the afternoon over land (afternoon thunderstorms you can set your clock to in Florida). However, this mechanism has no inherent effect on tropical convection.
There is another mechanism in play that aides in tropical moisture though. During the overnight and early morning hours, the earth is no longer absorbing solar radiation, and is therefore radiating heat back to space at its maximum potential, which is why temperatures decrease overnight. The warm surface continues to mix convectively upward at night, being replaced by cooler air towards the surface. This creates a more moist atmospheric profile, and given sufficient forcing for rising motion (in the tropics, converging winds at the low levels such as those associated with the ITCZ or a tropical wave/cyclone), convection is most likely to be at its maximum just before the sun rises in the tropics.
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