Climatology of Regional Flow Patterns around Basel

Summary Recently a method has been developed to classify local-scale flow patterns from the wind measurements at a dense network of stations. It was found that in the area around Basel twelve characteristic near-surface flow patterns occur. However, as the dense network of stations was running for one year only during the MISTRAL field experiment, no reliable climatology of the flow patterns can be inferred from these data. Mainly the annual cycle is not well determined from a single year of observations. As there exist several routinely operated meteorological stations with longer data records in and near the area discussed, a method was searched to identify the local flow patterns from the wind observations at these few permanent stations. A linear discriminant analysis turned out to be the best method. Based on wind data from 11 stations which were simultaneously in operation during 1990–1995, a six-year climatology of the flow patterns could be obtained and compared to synoptic weather types. Although there are relations to existing synoptic classes there is no unique correspondence between them and the flow patterns. Received February 24, 1997 Revised June 9, 1997     

华北东部强降水天气低层风场分型及降水落区

利用 1 992～ 2 0 0 1年 1～ 1 2月数值预报、天气图、卫星云图、渤海 4个测站及本区域 4个测站自记雨量、风向、风速等同步资料 ,对秦皇岛市出现的 1 8次暴雨、8次大雪天气过程进行综合对比分析 ,探讨了海区风向变化对降水落区的影响。通过 2 0 0 2～ 2 0 0 3年试报Ts值为 53%。     

中国近海大风的天气学分型

利用2010—2014年地面观测站（包括288个海岛站、380个沿海气象站、28个浮标站、37个船舶站、53个气象观测塔、13个海上平台站、9个沿海风廓线仪等）和高空气象观测站资料,采用天气学分型和统计分析方法,对2010—2014年285次中国近海6级及以上大风天气个例进行了分析,将近海的大风天气过程归纳为冷空气型、温带气旋型和热带气旋型3种类型。其中冷空气型又分为小槽东移型、小槽发展型和横槽转竖型;温带气旋型又分为东海气旋型、黄渤海气旋型和蒙古气旋型。这些分型可为海上大风预报预警提供天气学背景参考依据。     

Main types of synoptic processes and circulation types generating heavy precipitation events in Armenia

The results of synoptic analysis and objective Lamb circulation classification scheme (LAMB) during the days with heavy precipitation events in Armenia are presented. An analysis of synoptic situations in the area of Armenia and Southern Caucasus for the researched period 2001–2009 has shown that there are seven types of synoptic process characteristic of days with heavy precipitation events in Armenia. Adoption of the LAMB made it possible to identify the typical circulation types for each type of the synoptic process singled out. The results suggest that the LAMB is able to recognize the typical pattern of the distribution of sea level pressure field for each type of the synoptic processes. However, the use of the LAMB is further complicated in Southern Caucasus which can be explained by the existence of regional peculiarities of atmospheric circulation associated with significant influence of the Caucasian ridge. The LAMB may be recommended as an extra tool for synoptic analysis as well as for developing of synoptic climatology and statistical downscaling methods for Armenia and Southern Caucasus.     

A study of weather types at Athens and Thessaloniki and their relationship to circulation types for the cold-wet period, part I: two-step cluster analysis

This paper presents a method for grouping weather types that occur over an area, which combines meteorological parameters, reflecting air mass characteristics at the surface, with synoptic conditions prevailing over an area. Five quantitative meteorological parameters are used in the procedure: temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, wind velocity and sunshine duration. In addition, two qualitative variables related to the prevailing circulation type and whether it is cyclonic or anticyclonic are also included. The study period is 43 years (1958–2000) and is restricted to the cold and wet sub-period of the year, December–March. Weather types are defined using a relatively new method of cluster analysis, two-step cluster analysis, which allows the simultaneous use of both quantitative and qualitative variables. The aim of the present study is to distinguish primary weather patterns so that the investigation into the relationship between weather patterns and circulation types will be more effective. For Athens, six weather types are created, whereas for Thessaloniki five are produced. For both stations, only two weather types are related to anticyclonic situations. The majority of the identified weather types correspond to a distinctive and well-defined synoptic situation. Each weather type differs from the others, not only in terms of the circulation conditions referring to it, but also with reference to meteorological variables such as temperature and precipitation. The results of the evaluation of the aforementioned procedure are considered to be highly satisfactory.     

Synoptic Typing and Its Application for Evaluating Climatic Impact on Air Quality in Urumqi

An automated procedure employing principal-component analysis and a two-stage cluster analysis was developed to classify the synoptic meteorological conditions prevailing over Urumqi, one of the most heavily polluted cities in the world. Six clusters representing different circulation patterns and air-mass characteristics were classified using surface- and upper-meteorological variables during the heating period from 2001 to 2008, and the relationships between synoptic clusters and air quality were evaluated. The heaviest air-pollution episodes occurred when Urumqi was in either an extremely cold, strong anticyclone or at the front of a migrating cyclone, both with light winds, wet surface air, and relatively dry upper air. Moderate pollution was seen when Urumqi was in the pre-cold/cold frontal passages with lower temperatures and light winds or moderate anticyclone with relatively warmer, drier air. When Urumqi was at the front of a migrating anticyclone or in a weak anticyclone with moderate winds and most warm, dry air, or in the cold/post-cold frontal passages with relatively strongly northerly airflows and precipitation, relatively good air quality could be seen. These results suggest that air pollution in Urumqi is very closely related to the synoptic meteorological conditions, which provides an important basis for not only the prediction and control of urban air-quality problems here but also for the analysis of the differential impacts of weather and pollution on human morbidity.     

Diurnal Variations of the Temperature and Their Influenceon Wind Regime in a Confluence Zone of Antarctica

Summary The behaviour of the wind field at the confluence zone of Terra Nova Bay during a transition period from winter to summer is considered. To explain some observed features the influence of diurnal variations are considered to integrate and complete the analysis based on annual and seasonal variations. Diurnal variations in the buoyancy difference between two main air masses coming from the Revees and Priestley glaciers are assumed to contribute to diurnal alteration of the wind direction at the Nansen ice sheet. The data recorded at three automatic weather stations (AWS) available that period are analysed. Using the wavelet analysis procedure, it is shown that the contribution of one-day variations of some basic meteorological parameters and their gradients (in particular of temperature and pressure) is important and comparable with synoptic ones. On the base of the diurnal variations some aspects of the local circulation have been explained. The basis for the further studies related to the evolution of katabatic winds in this area are also presented. Received August 3, 1998 Revised March 12, 1999     

Mesoscale Precipitation and Temperature Regimes in Sardinia (Italy) and their Related Synoptic Circulation

Summary This paper describes an attempt to define mesoscale daily precipitation and temperature regimes over Sardinia and their relation to different synoptic patterns. In order to address this task an extensive Cluster Analysis was performed on the whole data set using a number of methods, each including several distance measures. Thirty years of daily data, for the period ranging from 1951 to 1980 for the 114 stations with precipitation and 20 with temperature, were used in the study. In order to retrieve homogeneous clusters, non-hierarchical methods were found to be more effective and the use of a correlation-like distance was more effective for precipitation. To discriminate between the different clusters, the corresponding mean mass fields for the 500 hPa height and sea level pressure were used and an analysis of synoptic situations linked to mesoscale regimes was performed. The results show that at least two mean surface patterns exist corresponding to clearly different synoptic situations. Nevertheless, physical considerations led us to consider three distinct clusters, two of which correspond to specific synoptic circulations with slight, but meteorologically significant, differences. Received November 28, 1997 Revised October 1, 1998     

Synoptic and regional patterns of heavy precipitation in Austria

Summary Seven synoptic patterns responsible for heavy precipitation in Austria were identified with a trajectory clustering method. Back trajectories at different levels, at different times during each day, and from different locations in Austria were utilised together with one potential vorticity value. In addition, seven regions within Austria with similar daily precipitation were identified. The response of heavy precipitation in each of these regions to the synoptic patterns was studied. The results correspond to the synoptic experience and reflect known meteorological situations, such as southerly and northerly Stau or the Vb pattern. The analyses are based on the 15-year re-analysis of the ECMWF (1979–1993), used to calculate the back trajectories, and daily precipitation sums of 131 climate stations in Austria. This paves the way to future applications in climate change research, as the necessary input data are also available from global climate models. The clustering was performed with a promising new procedure, a combination of hierarchical and iterative (K-means) clustering.     

Functional clustering for Italian climate zones identification

This work presents a functional clustering procedure applied to meteorological time series. Our proposal combines time series interpolation with smoothing penalized B-spline and the partitioning around medoids clustering algorithm. Our final goal is to obtain homogeneous climate zones of Italy. We compare this approach to standard methods based on a combination of principal component analysis and Cluster Analysis (CA) and we discuss it in relation to other functional clustering approaches based on Fourier analysis and CA. We show that a functional approach is simpler than the standard methods from a methodological and interpretability point of view. Indeed, it becomes natural to find a clear connection between mathematical results and physical variability mechanisms. We discuss how the choice of the basis expansion (splines, Fourier) affects the analysis and propose some comments on their use. The basis for classification is formed by monthly values of temperature and precipitation recorded during the period 1971–2000 over 95 and 94 Italian monitoring stations, respectively. An assessment based on climatic patterns is presented to prove the consistency of the clustering and a comparison of results obtained with different methods is used to judge the functional data approach.     

Impact of the Rhône and Durance valleys on sea-breeze circulation in the Marseille area

Sea-breeze dynamics in the Marseille area, in the south of France, is investigated in the framework of the ESCOMPTE experiment conducted during summer 2001 in order to evaluate the role of thermal circulations on pollutant transport and ventilation. Under particular attention in this paper is the sea-breeze channelling by the broad Rhône valley and the narrow Durance valley, both oriented nearly-north–south, i.e., perpendicular to the coastline, and its possible impact on the sea-breeze penetration, intensity and depth, which are key information for air pollution issues. One situation of slight synoptic pressure gradient leading to a northerly flow in the Rhône valley (25 June 2001) and one situation of a weak onshore prevailing synoptic wind (26 June 2001) are compared. The impact of the Rhône and Durance valleys on the sea-breeze dynamics on these two typical days is generalized to the whole ESCOMPTE observing period.The present study shows by combining simple scaling analysis with wind data from meteorological surface stations and Doppler lidars that (i) the Durance valley always affects the sea breeze by accelerating the flow. A consequence is that the Durance valley contributes to weaken the temperature gradient along the valley and thus the sea-breeze circulation. In some cases, the acceleration of the channelled flow in the Durance valley suppresses the sea-breeze flow by temperature gradient inhibition; (ii) the Rhône valley does not generally affect the sea breeze significantly. However, if the sea breeze is combined with an onshore flow, it leads to further penetration inland and intensification of the low-level southerly flow. In this situation, lateral constriction may accelerate the sea breeze. Simple scaling analysis suggests that Saint Paul (44.35°N, about 100 km from the coastline) is the lower limit where sea breeze can be affected by the Rhône valley. These conclusions have implications in air quality topics as channelled sea breeze may advect far inland pollutants which may be incorporated into long-range transport, particularly in the Durance valley.     

A Practical Example of Low-Frequency Trend Removal

Three different classical methods of removing low-frequency trends are used to detrend some instrumental data, and their effect is evaluated. The examples given here highlight problems that may occur whenever detrending is necessary. The trend present in the data arises from the passage of synoptic weather systems over the Antarctic during the operation of the instrument. The resultant signal varies over a period of hours. This contrasts with the phenomenon to be studied (atmospheric gravity waves), which have periods of a few tens of minutes at most and amplitudes typically one or two orders of magnitude smaller than for synoptic systems. The trend removal procedure is relevant to many more situations than the analysis of meteorological pressure data.     

十一运会沿海赛地大风预报技术研究

选取了十一届全运会比赛地烟台、威海、日照3站1971—2008年逐日10min平均最大风速,统计分析了比赛期间(9—11月)大风气候特征。结果表明:秋季大风随着年代的变化,大风日数逐渐减少,共同点是9—11月大风日数逐渐增多;不同区域大风发生几率差异较大,位于北部沿海的威海、烟台出现大风的几率明显大于南部沿海的日照,尤其以威海几率最大。利用2001—2008年的天气图资料,对产生大风的天气系统进行了普查,结果表明,9—11月造成烟台、威海、日照大风的主要有低槽冷锋、气旋、热带气旋等天气系统以及东高西低和南高北低两种形势场。利用NCEP再分析资料,对产生大风的各类天气系统天气形势进行了合成分析,并给出各类天气系统产生大风时平均形势场。     

DIAGNOSTIC ANALYSIS ON THE DYNAMICS AND NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF CLEAR AIR TURBULENCE(CAT)

Clear air turbulence(CAT),a meso-or microscale(subgrid scale)phenomenon occurring insynoptic scale flow field at high altitude,is very difficult to be observed by the conventional obser-vation network.Thus it is necessary to approach an index to predict CAT.But at first,the struc-ture characteristics of CAT should be preanalyzed.In this paper,based on the theoretical and diag-nostic analysis of a case,features for wind profile,energy budget and dynamic mechanism of thiscase were presented.Furthermore,an objective and quantitative index for CAT forecast was giv-en.The verification for its efficiency was done with both real-time observation data and productsfrom a numerical model.The results are very encouraging.     

Urbanization Effect on the Observed Change in Mean Monthly Temperatures between 1951-1980 and 1971-2000 in Korea

Gridded temperature data are necessary to run ecological models at regional scales for climate impact studies and have been generated by spatially interpolating measured values at synoptic stations. Because there are few synoptic stations with long-term records in rural areas in Korea, data from urban stations have been used for this purpose. Due to the overlapping of the rapid urbanization-industrialization period with the global warming era in Korea, climate data from these urbanized areas might be contaminated with urban heat island effect. This study was conducted to differentiate urbanization and regional climate change effects on apparent temperature change. Monthly averages of daily minimum, maximum, and mean temperature at 14 synoptic stations were prepared for 1951-1980 (past normal) and 1971-2000 (current normal) periods, respectively.Differences in two temperature normals were regressed to the logarithm of the population increase at 14 corresponding cities from 1966 to 1985. The regression equations were used to determine potential effects of urbanization and to extract the net contribution of regional climate change to the apparent temperature change. According to the model calculation, urbanization effect was common in all months except April. Up to 0.5° warming of nighttime temperature was induced by urbanization in the current normal period compared with the past normal period. There was little effect of regional climate change on local warming in the warm season (May through November). The cool season was warmed mainly by regionally increased daytime temperature. The results could be used to remove urbanization effects embedded in raw data, helping restore unbiased rural temperature trends in South Korea.     

Analysis of mesometeorological temperature fields

Summary An objective procedure of a three-dimensional temperature analysis in a topography following (zeta) coordinate system is presented. Temperature data from various conventional sources (ground stations, RAWIN, synoptic analysis) are interpolated into the grid points of the zeta system (the horizontal grid distance is 1 km, vertical resolution is 11 levels up to 2500 m) by a topography variability considering horizontal interpolation. As the correlations between the synop and also the upper air data from pairs of stations on different sides of a mountain barrier show a rapid decrease (Lanzinger and Steinacker, 1989), the Euclidic distances between the points with measurements and the grid points are corrected according to the variability of the gird points are corrected according to the variability of the topography between the two points. If the topography between the two points is flat, or if there is only a valley, the Euclidean distance is used as an interpolation distance. In case of a ridge between the two poinst the interpolation distance is increased according to the topography height variation and the stability of the air mass. In the vertical interpolations a synthetic temperature profile is used made of the data from Rawin, the measurements from meteorological tower and the measurements from some meteorological stations located at high altitude.The grid point temperature values are adjusted to satisfy quasi-stationarity condition, considering advective and diabatic changes of the temperature. A variational formalism in a weighted least square sense in the zeta coordinate system is developed and the boundary conditions are specified. The results (3-D temperature fields and the fields of local derivative of temperature) for a large pre-alpine basin (the Ljubljana basin in the central part of Slovenia, Yugoslavia, 50×50 km) are presented and the usefullness of the adjustement procedure is discussed.With 5 Figures     

机载微波辐射计反演云液水含量的云物理方法

用一维层状云模式产生云样本,通过统计回归求得机载对空微波辐射计测云中路径积分液态水含量的反演系数,与用历史探空统计资料作相对湿度诊断产生云样本的反演方法进行了比较,并通过因素分析、数值模拟检验等方法对机载微波辐射计的探测误差进行估计。对2001年7月8日的个例分析表明,用云模式得到的统计样本,由于加入了对层状云物理过程的考虑,较为符合当天的实际天气情况,在一定程度上减小了由于背景大气条件、云温、云内含水量的垂直分布等的不确定性所引起的反演误差。对反演精度的数值模拟检验表明,各高度层的均方根相对误差在9.5%～12.7%之间,反演精度在所有高度上都高于原方法。对探测误差的因素分析表明,与仪器漂移及背景场引起的误差相比,由云液水垂直分布的不确定所引起的误差是不可忽略的。因此为进一步提高反演精度,根据实际宏观观测资料,对云模式产生的大量样本进行筛选,从中选取与实际云况较为符合的云样本进行拟合,结果表明,采用这一措施可以使反演精度得到进一步改善。     

A study of weather types at Athens and Thessaloniki and their relationship to circulation types for the cold-wet period, part II: discriminant analysis

A discriminant analysis is applied in order to determine the relationships between circulation types in the middle troposphere and prevailing weather types over two major Greek cities, Athens and Thessaloniki. In order to describe the synoptic conditions, an automatic classification scheme for the Greek region is used. For each circulation type identified (14 in total), several meteorological parameters at the 500 hPa level are calculated such as geopotential heights and their anomalies, temperature and relative vorticity. Weather group-types that reflect the conditions at the surface, were previously defined using a two-step cluster analysis. These types result from a combination of five meteorological parameters—maximum temperature, precipitation amount, relative humidity, wind velocity and sunshine duration. The study period is 43 years long (1958–2000) and is restricted to the cold and wet period of the year, from December until March. For Athens, six weather types are developed, whereas for Thessaloniki five are produced. By means of a stepwise discriminant analysis (DA) model, the most important variables from the 500 hPa level are found and are used to generate the necessary functions that can discriminate weather types over the two stations. The aim of the present study is first to discriminate weather types effectively and to identify the most important discriminating variables, and second, to connect these weather types to elements of the prevailing synoptic pattern, through mathematical functions provided by DA. The results of the evaluation of the aforementioned procedure are considered to be very satisfactory.     

Teleconnection patterns of the Siberian Anticyclone and precipitation over Cyprus

The Siberian Anticyclone (SA) is one of the dominant cold season synoptic systems of the northern hemisphere. The effects of the SA on the areas over which it appears to reside on synoptic maps are well established. This study examines the impacts that the SA has on local climate in areas far beyond the area of its domination. The existence of any teleconnection patterns derived from the SA sea level pressure (SLP) characteristics and their relation to precipitation over Cyprus are examined. Four indices were created describing the characteristics (behavior) of the SA (strength and geographical displacement). In an attempt to identify possible relations between precipitation, on the one hand, and the SA indices, on the other hand, a network of 32 rain gauge stations in Cyprus, both coastal and inland, was carefully selected to cover the whole island. The pressure field of the SA was found to affect the precipitation of each month differently. The results are consistent for each case and it was found that the geographical location of each station plays an important role. All four indices were found to be related to precipitation.     

Forecasting of storm rainfall by combined use of radar, rain gages and linear models

An integrated approach to real-time prediction of point rainfall is presented. This is based on the assumption that hourly rainfall at a station can be predicted by a Multivariate AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (MARIMA) process. The real-time calibration of the multivariate model is performed by combining radar maps and data from rain gages. Accordingly, radar maps provide the basic information for a storm tracking procedure which enables to detect the direction and the speed of storm movement. Storm tracking is used to select those stations which are characterized by the highest Lagrangian cross-correlation of observed precipitation, and which are therefore best suitable for application of the multivariate model. The parameters of the multivariate model are finally estimated using only observed rainfall at the selected stations throughout the current event. Preliminary results of an application to some events which occurred in northern Italy show that the combined use of radar and rain gages allows for an increased efficiency of the MARIMA model performances, as compared with empirical selection of stations to be considered by the multivariate model. The multivariate approach performs better also when it is compared with simple nowcasting procedures based on rain gage data or on radar data used separately. Finally, some considerations are issued in view of a systematic use of this technique to nowcast rainfall intensity in small urban or natural catchments, with a response time of less than 1 or 2 h.