A Lagrangian View of Moisture Dynamics During DYNAMO.

Column water vapor (CWV) is studied using data from the Dynamics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (DYNAMO) field experiment. A distinctive moist mode in tropical CVW probability distributions motivates the work. The Lagrangian CWV tendency (LCT) leaves together the compensating tendencies from phase change and vertical advection, quantities which cannot be measured accurately by themselves, to emphasize their small residual, which governs evolution.