Basic convective element: bubble or plume? A historical review

摘要

During the 1950s and 1960s, when intensive investigations on atmosphericmoist convection were launched, two possibilities were identified for thebasic element of moist convection: bubble and plume. The present paperreviews the investigations of this period, and suggests how the mass-fluxconvection parameterization formulation emerged from these earlyinvestigations. The choice of the steady-plume model as a key ingredient ofthe mass-flux formulation is especially carefully discussed. Some historicallessons are suggested, especially in the light of the current trend of moreemphasis on the bubble dynamics as elucidated by high-resolution numericalmodeling and laboratory experiments.