The natural variability of precipitating clouds over the western Pacific warm pool

The natural variability of precipitating cloud systems over the western Pacific ‘warm pool’ is investigated by analysing aircraft C‐band radar data collected on 24 aircraft missions during the Coupled Ocean‐Atmosphere Response Experiment of the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere programme (TOGA COARE) in relation to the infrared (IR) temperature patterns measured contemporaneously by geosynchronous satellite. the data are analysed at fine (24 km × 24 km) and coarse (240 km diameter) horizontal resolutions, which correspond to typical resolutions of mesoscale and general‐ciruclation models, repectively. The analysis is statistical and imposes no a priori conceptual model or subjectively decided‐upon structure categories. The mean IR temperature of cloud tops, and the sizes of rain areas mapped by radar (and objectively subdivided into convective and stratiform subareas), are tallied and relatted to each other to obtain statistics respresentative of the four‐month period of the TOGA COARE. At fine resolution the precipitation region underlying very cold tops (50% of a coarse area) te