convener:Hiroaki Miura(The University of Tokyo), Atsushi Hamada(University of Toyama), Satoru Yokoi(Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), Masaki Satoh(Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo)

Water vapor plays a significant role in regulating the global atmospheric circulation, especially in the troposphere. The overturning circulation is directly driven by the longwave radiative cooling of water vapor and the latent heating/cooling through microphysical processes to balance it. This global circulation is composed of diverse atmospheric phenomena with various spatial and temporal scales. Developments of some significant turbulent motions such as 3D isotropic turbulence in clouds, stratocumulus and cumulus convection, squall lines and tropical cyclones, and the Madden-Julian oscillation, are essentially associated with moisture anomaly in each scale. Moisture is accumulated relatively slowly in larger horizontal scales, but is consumed relatively quickly in smaller ones. This significant scale gaps between the accumulation and consumption may be one of the causes of the long-lasting difficulty in developing the theory of the moist atmosphere. The aim of this session is to share the recent researches about the relationships between moisture and organized cloud systems in wider spatial and temporal scales to enhance collaborations between modeling, observational, and theoretical approaches in tackling this challenging task. Research results relating to the Years of the Maritime Continent (YMC), Radiative-Convective Equilibrium Model Intercomparison Project (RCEMIP), and mesoscale simulations of severe weather are welcome.