Surface energy and radiation budget over a tropical station: An observational study

This study attempts to understand the variations in the radiation and surface energy budget parameters during days of occurrence and non occurrence of convective activity such as thunderstorms at Ranchi (23°25??N, 85°26??E), India using the special experimental data sets obtained during pre-monsoon month of May, 2008. For this purpose five continuous thunderstorm days (TD) of varying intensity, along with three non-thunderstorm days (NTD) preceding the TD are considered. Thunderstorms occurred at site are multi-cellular in nature. Change of wind direction and strong gusty winds are noticed in TD cases. Pre-dominant wind direction is south westerly for the TD; it is northwesterly during NTD. Sudden drop of air temperature and rise of relative humidity and rise/drop in atmospheric pressure is noticed during TD are found to be proportional to the intensity of thunderstorm event. More partitioning of net radiation (QN) is in to latent heat flux (QE) and the contribution of sensible heat flux (QH) and soil heat flux (QG) are same during TD. But in the NTD more partitioning of QN is in to QH followed by QG that of QE. Significant differences in radiation and energy budget components are noticed during TD and NTD events.