Principal component analysis of vertical profiles of Q₁ and Q₂ in the tropics

Rotated principal component analysis (PCA) is applied to the combined vertical profiles of apparent heat source Q₁ and apparent moisture sink Q₂ from both disturbed and undisturbed periods of the Australian summer monsoon season. The contribution of PC1 (that mode of variability that explains the maximum amount of variance between profiles) is largest when mature cloud-cluster coverage is most expansive. Therefore, this PC is attributable to that combination of deep convection and associated stratiform anvil typical of mature cloud clusters. The remaining PCs fall into two categories: those whose contributions vary with the evolution of a convective system and those whose contributions vary diurnally. -from Authors