Linking Interregional NASA Airborne Observations of Near‐Storm Environments to Tropical Oceanic Convective Structure

Abstract Deep tropical oceanic convection is a key component of the tropical atmosphere, with environmental moisture and vertical wind shear influencing its structure and intensity. However, attempts to generalize convection‐environment relationships across the broad‐scale tropics have produced inconsistent results, partly owing to limits of reanalysis, modeling, and satellite remote sensing, along with suggested regional variability that altogether behoove regionally targeted field campaigns. The NASA 2022 Convective Processes Experiment—Cabo Verde (CPEX‐CV) airborne field campaign collected rare, coincident, high‐resolution convective structure and near‐storm environmental measurements suitable to investigate convection‐environment relationships in the tropical East Atlantic. Analysis of collocated CPEX‐CV radar, LiDAR, and dropsonde observations, particularly in convective inflow regions, linked multi‐core convection to greater median deep layer wind shear and free‐tropospheric moisture, but lesser planetary boundary layer wind shear than single‐core convection among large near‐storm environmental variabilities that contributed to statistically insignificant differences. Regional comparisons with analogous data sets from two prior NASA CPEX campaigns in the tropical West Atlantic and the NASA Cloud, Aerosol, and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP 2 Ex) in the tropical Northwest Pacific revealed similar statistically insignificant links to near‐storm moisture but differing wind shear results, highlighting regional variability in convection‐environment relationships. The interregional analysis also revealed free‐tropospheric moisture to be less of a determining factor on convective type in strong‐sheared environments, and vice versa. CPEX‐CV convective intensity relationships with near‐storm moisture and wind shear were not definitive, likely owing to broader scale environmental influences that warrants future research using model simulations informed by field campaign data.