Representative regions within the continental US, based on CTP-HIlow scatter plots from radiosonde stations with at least 10 years of data between 1957 and 1998.

• In atmospherically controlled regions, most of the days are either too humid, too dry, or too stable for fluxes from the land surface to influence the triggering of convection. In the too humid cases, rainfall will occur independent of land surface flux partitioning, while in the other cases, the early-morning atmosphere is either too dry or too stable for rainfall to be triggered, regardless of contributions of heat and humidity from the surface.
• In negative feedback regions, there are many more days when dry soils are more likely to trigger convection than days when wet soils are more likely to trigger convection.
• In positive feedback regions, there are many more days when wet soils are more likely to trigger convection than days when dry soils are more likely to trigger convection.
• In transitional regions, there are an approximately equal number of days with CTP-HIlow characteristics in the wet soil and dry soil advantage regimes.

Go back to Kirsten's thesis summary page.

Go back to Kirsten's main page.