Global distribution of deep convection reaching tropopause in 1 year GPM observations

To characterize and quantify tropopause-reaching deep convection, 1 year of Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) Ku band radar echoes are surveyed in relation to several reference levels derived from the ERA-Interim reanalysis data set. Consistent with the observations of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission over the tropics, the GPM has detected tropopause-reaching deep convection dominantly over tropical land, especially over Panama and Central Africa. At middle and high latitudes, tropopause-reaching convective storms are mainly found over land in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer. Compared to those in the tropics, convective cores at middle and high latitudes have relatively larger sizes at the tropopause, especially those over central North America. The zonal distributions of the occurrences of 15 dBZ and 20 dBZ radar echoes at the tropopause show two comparable maxima, one in the tropics and the other in northern middle-high latitudes. This implies that the convection penetrating the tropopause at northern middle-high latitudes is as frequent as those over the tropics. It is important to understand their role in the vertical transport of trace gases between the troposphere and the stratosphere.