The BMRC Australian Monsoon Experiment: AMEX

Abstract

The Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (BMRC) willbe conducting a major research effort in the Australian tropics during 1986-1988 including a two-phase field experiment, the Australian Monsoon Experiment (AMEX). This will be done in collaboration with Monash University and with scientists and concomitant experiments from a numberof other international and national organizations. The aims of this research are to improve our understanding of the way that cumulonimbus convection and tropicalcloud clusters interact with the larger-scale circulation; ofair-sea interaction in the tropics; and of specif,c weather phenomena in the north Australian region. The scope of theexperiment is such that it also will provide a data base ofsome importance for atmospheric research into the tropicalatmosphere. This paper describes the background in which AMEX wasconceived, the experimental objectives, and the observingprogram. More-complete details may be found in McBrideand Holland (1986).