The main goal of my current research is to better understand and simulate how tropical convection interacts with the large-scale flow. This interaction is key to the tropical circulation, particularly the rainfall distribution and its variability. These issues are important to society. Variations in the Asian monsoon rain, for example, can bring droughts or floods and affect the lives of billions of people. Despite its well appreciated importance, our understanding of how tropical convection interacts with the large-scale flow remains poor, so does our ability to simulate this interaction. In our research, we use novel high resolution numerical model experiments, together with observational data analysis, to guide development of theoretical models. Besides the meteorological implications of tropical convection, we are also interested in its role in global chemistry.