The Organization of Tropical East Pacific Convection (OTREC) Field Campaign— Five Years Later

Studying convection, which is one of the least understood physical mechanisms in the tropical atmosphere, is very important for weather and climate predictions of extreme events such as storms, hurricanes, monsoons, floods, and hail. Collecting more observations to do so is critical. It is also a challenge. The Organization of Tropical East Pacific Convection (OTREC) field project took place in the summer of 2019. More than thirty scientists and twenty students from the United States, Costa Rica, Colombia, México, and the United Kingdom were involved in collecting observations over the ocean (east Pacific and Caribbean) and land (Costa Rica, Colombia). We used the NSF NCAR Gulfstream V airplane to fly at 13-km altitude sampling the tropical atmosphere under diverse weather conditions. The plane was flown in a “lawnmower” pattern and every 10 min deployed dropsondes that measured temperature, wind, humidity, and pressure from the flight level to the ocean. Similarly, over the land, we launched radiosondes, leveraged existing radars, and surface meteorological networks across the region, some with collocated global positioning system (GPS) receivers and rain sensors, and installed a new surface GPS meteorological network across Costa Rica, culminating in an impressive systematic dataset that when assimilated into weather models immediately gave better forecasts. We are now closer than ever in understanding the environmental conditions necessary for convection as well as how convection influences extreme events. The OTREC dataset continues to be studied by researchers all over the globe. This article aims to describe the lengthy process that precedes science breakthroughs.