Retrieval of Latent Heating from Trmm Measurements

P recipitation, in driving the global hydrological cycle, strongly influences the behavior of the Earth’s weather and climate systems and is central to their variability. Two-thirds of the global rainfall occurs over the Tropics,1 which leads to its profound effect on the general circulation of the atmosphere. This is because its energetic equivalent, latent heating (LH), is the tropical convective heat engine’s primary fuel source as originally emphasized by Riehl and Malkus (1958). At low latitudes, LH stemming from extended bands of rainfall modulates large-scale zonal and meridional circulations and their consequent mass overturnings (e.g., Hartmann et al. 1984; Hack and Schubert 1990). Also, LH is the principal energy source in the creation, growth, vertical structure, and propagation of long-lived tropical