On the interaction between cumulus clouds and the larger-scale environment

This article briefly reviews the published and unpublished work carried out by the author and his colleagues during the past few years on the interaction between cumulus clouds and the larger-scale environment. This work has been directed toward: (a) identifying favorable large-scale environments for generation of an organized meso disturbance and (b) investigating the feedback effect of a cumulus ensemble on the large-scale environment. Feedback includes the redistribution of heat and moisture by cumulus clouds in the large-scale atmosphere once a large number of different sized cumuli have developed. Both cumulus clouds over the continental United States and over the tropical oceans are considered in this article and some differences between them are discussed. A number of unsolved questions which the author feels are of importance are raised.