The QBO signal in monthly precipitation fields over Europe

Summary Areal monthly precipitation totals of 24 West and Central European regions and of 74 regions of the European part of the former USSR are studied in respect to the westerly and easterly phases of the QBO for the longest available period from 1953 to the 1980s. A significant QBO signal has been detected in September and October in the region of the British Isles, in the Central European region and in Byelorussia (in the easterly phase more precipitation and its lower variability in September and higher variability in October), but also in small region of the south Ukraine in August and in October. Regions of the eastern Ukraine and adjoined regions of Russia had the significant QBO signal in May (more precipitation and its prevalent lower variability in the westerly phase). The observed effects are explained by circulation differences in the westerly and easterly phases of the QBO.With 2 Figures     

Some annual variation characteristics for the Northern Hemispheric monthly mean precipitation fields

By the utilization of monthly precipitation data from all stations in the Northern Hemisphere annexed to the “World Survey of climatology, Vol. 1-15, the distributions of the maximum precipitation months (MPM), the annual relative precipitation (ARP) and the monthly relative precipitation (percent of annual) in January and July are respectively mapped. Moreover the distributions of intermonthly relative precipitation variabilities from January to December are plotted as well. From these figures, the precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere may be classified into three types (continental, oceanic and transitional types) and 17 regions. The precipitation regime may also be divided into two patterns, the global and regional patterns. The global pattern consists of planetary front system and ITCZ and its inter-monthly variation shows the north-and-south shift of the rain belt; the regional pattern consists of the sea-land monsoon and plateau monsoon regime, in which the inter-monthly variation of rain belt shows a east- and-west shift.     

梅里雪山地区气温和降水的时空分异及海拔效应

梅里雪山地区是中国地形起伏最大的地区之一,其气候环境复杂多变、空间分异特征显著,对区域气温和降水的系统分析有助于揭示区域内冰川变化的原因和水文循环过程。站点观测的缺乏和再分析资料的低空间分辨率是精细刻画该地区气象条件的主要制约因素。研究中首先基于有限站点观测,采用尺度因子法和月尺度的回归校正对ERA5-Land产品进行校准;然后,考虑气温和降水的海拔效应,采用Anusplin插值的方式对校准后的结果进行统计降尺度。最终获得了梅里雪山地区近30年(1990—2020年）1 km空间分辨率的气温、降水数据,并以此分析了这一地区降水、气温的时空异质性及其在不同海拔梯度上的表现特征。结果表明,区域气温以0.15℃/(10 a)的速率呈显著上升趋势,且各季节升温的幅度及分布范围各异;降水则以-41.19 mm/(10 a)的速率呈显著下降趋势,整个区域呈“变暖变干”的倾向。区域增温具有明显的海拔依赖性,海拔低于4000 m和>5000 m时,增温不随海拔变化而变化,当海拔处于4000~5000 m时,增温幅度随海拔升高而增加。区域降水也具有显著的海拔梯度效应,当海拔<5000 m时,西坡降水随海拔的升高而减少,当超过该海拔后降水随海拔升高而增加;东坡降水始终随海拔升高而增加。梅里雪山气候变化的时空分异特征是大气环流背景和复杂地理环境共同作用的结果。区域持续的变暖及降水的减少可能会进一步加重该区冰川水资源的流失。     

Effect of aerosol pollution on clouds and its dependence on precipitation intensity

In this study, simulations performed with a large-eddy resolving numerical model are used to examine the effect of aerosol on cumulus clouds, and how this effect varies with precipitation intensity. By systematically varying the surface moisture fluxes, the modeled precipitation rate is forced to change from weak to strong intensity. For each of these intensities, simulations of a high-aerosol case (a polluted case with a higher aerosol concentration) and a low-aerosol case (a clean case with a lower aerosol concentration) are performed. Whether or not precipitation and associated sub-cloud evaporation and convective available potential energy (CAPE) are large, liquid–water path (LWP) is larger in the high-aerosol case than in the low-aerosol case over the first two-thirds of the entire simulation period. In weak precipitation cases, reduction in aerosol content leads to changes in CAPE in the middle parts of cloud layers, which in turn induces larger LWP in the low-aerosol case over the last third of the simulation period. With strong precipitation, stronger stabilization of the sub-cloud layers in the low-aerosol case counters the CAPE changes in the middle parts of cloud layers, inducing smaller LWP in the low-aerosol case over the last third of the simulation period. The results highlight an interaction between aerosol effects on CAPE above cloud base and those in sub-cloud layers, and indicate the importance of a consideration of aerosol effects on CAPE above cloud base as well as those in sub-cloud layers. In the high-aerosol case, near the beginning of the simulation period, larger environmental CAPE does not necessarily lead to larger in-cloud CAPE and associated larger cloud intensity because aerosol-induced increase in cloud population enhances competition among clouds for the environmental CAPE. This demonstrates the importance of the consideration of cloud population for an improved parameterization of convective clouds in climate models.     

How to apply the dependence structure analysis to extreme temperature and precipitation for disaster risk assessment

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - IPCC reports that a changing climate can affect the frequency and the intensity of extreme events. However, the extremes appear in the tail of the probability...     

ECMWF细网格模式在阿勒泰地区短时强降水环境场预报中的统计检验

利用ECMWF细网格模式产品对阿勒泰地区2013-2018年5-9月36场短时强降水过程的环境场预报性能进行统计学检验。结果表明:48 h预报时效内模式对海平面气压场、2 m温度场和露点温度场、10 m风场,500 hPa高度场、850 hPa温度场和比湿场及对流层风场预报误差较小,精度较高,在预报业务中为首选物理量;对700 hPa相对湿度场和垂直速度场预报误差较大,且以随机误差为主,在预报业务中注意订正运用。     

Spatial dependence of diurnal temperature range trends on precipitation from 1950 to 2004

This paper analyzes the spatial dependence of annual diurnal temperature range (DTR) trends from 1950–2004 on the annual climatology of three variables: precipitation, cloud cover, and leaf area index (LAI), by classifying the global land into various climatic regions based on the climatological annual precipitation. The regional average trends for annual minimum temperature (T _min) and DTR exhibit significant spatial correlations with the climatological values of these three variables, while such correlation for annual maximum temperature (T _max) is very weak. In general, the magnitude of the downward trend of DTR and the warming trend of T _min decreases with increasing precipitation amount, cloud cover, and LAI, i.e., with stronger DTR decreasing trends over drier regions. Such spatial dependence of T _min and DTR trends on the climatological precipitation possibly reflects large-scale effects of increased global greenhouse gases and aerosols (and associated changes in cloudiness, soil moisture, and water vapor) during the later half of the twentieth century.     

Validation of a limited area model in cases of mediterranean cyclogenesis: Surface fields and precipitation scores

Summary We have examined the performance of a limited-area mesoscale model of our design in cases of winter cyclones over the southern European-central Mediterranean area with particular ticular attention to standard precipitation statistical scores (bias, threat score, false alarms), obtaining results which compare favourably with other state-of-the-art LAM's documented in the literature. The model, which we briefly describe here, uses standard procedures and includes Geleyn's radiation package and Emanuel's moist convective adjustment scheme. We also discuss the model's performance from the viewpoint of individual surface fields, which display a variety of-mesoscale features correctly reproducing, in most cases, those of the observed fields. The latter have been re-analyzed for this purpose using conventional SYNOP data and ECMWF analyses as first guess.With 18 Figures     

近30 a影响皖北东部降水的台风环流场研究

分析1981—2014年7—9月影响皖北东部地区的台风特征,统计不同台风路径和降雨量之间的关系,研究不同路径下皖北东部出现暴雨的环流场特征,结果表明:(1)西北行、陆面转向、海面转向和其他类路径的台风都可以影响皖北东部,并产生降水。其中产生降水个例最多的台风路径为陆面转向类,次多为西北行类。(2)台风影响时无降水、非暴雨和暴雨3类降水个例的500 hPa平均环流场对比分析表明:当有台风影响皖北东部时,配合西风槽或副高阻挡更有利于产生强降水。(3)西北行类台风暴雨的环流场特征是华北到河套存在西南-东北走向高压带阻挡使台风停滞少动;海面转向类台风暴雨环流场特征是河套东部存在低槽与台风相互作用;陆面转向类台风暴雨环流场可以分为3类:贝湖两槽一脊型、贝湖单槽型和副热带高压阻挡型。     

Assessing the performance of satellite-based precipitation products and its dependence on topography over Poyang Lake basin

Satellite-based precipitation products (SPPs) have greatly improved their applicability and are expected to offer an alternative to ground-based precipitation estimates in the present and the foreseeable future. There is a strong need for a quantitative evaluation of the usefulness and limitations of SPPs in operational meteorology and hydrology. This study compared two widely used high-resolution SPPs, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Precipitation Estimation from Remote Sensing Information using Artificial Neural Network (PERSIANN) in Poyang Lake basin which is located in the middle reach of the Yangtze River in China. The bias of rainfall amount and occurrence frequency under different rainfall intensities and the dependence of SPPs performance on elevation and slope were investigated using different statistical indices. The results revealed that (1) TRMM 3B42 usually underestimates the rainy days and overestimates the average rainfall as well as annual rainfall, while the PERSIANN data were markedly lower than rain gauge data; (2) the rainfall contribution rates were underestimated by TRMM 3B42 in the middle rainfall class but overestimated in the heavy rainfall class, while the opposite trend was observed for PERSIANN; (3) although the temporal distribution characteristics of monthly rainfall were correctly described by both SPPs, PERSIANN tended to suffer a systematic underestimation of rainfall in every month; and (4) the performances of both SPPs had clear dependence on elevation and slope, and their relationships can be fitted using quadratic equations.     

Study of method for synthetic precipitation data for ungauged sites using quantitative precipitation model

A method was developed to estimate a synthetic precipitation record for ungauged sites using irregular coarse observations. The proposed synthetic precipitation data were produced with ultrahigh hourly resolution on a regular 1 × 1 km grid. The proposed method was used to analyze selected real-time observational data collected in South Korea from 2010 to the end of 2014. The observed precipitation data were measured using the Automatic Weather System and Automated Synoptic Observing System. The principal objective of the proposed method was to estimate the additional effects of orography on precipitation introduced by ultrahigh- resolution (1 × 1 km) topography provided by a digital elevation model. The Global Forecast System analysis of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction was used for the upper-atmospheric conditions, necessary for estimating the orographic effects. Precipitation data from 48 of the more than 600 observation sites used in the study, which matched the grid points of the synthetic data, were not included in the synthetic data estimation. Instead, these data were used to evaluate the proposed method by direct comparison with the real observations at these sites. A bias score was investigated by comparison of the synthetic precipitation data with the observations. In this comparison, the number of Hit, False, Miss, and Correct results for 2010-2014 was 74738, 25778, 7544, and 367981, respectively. In the Hit cases, the bias score was 1.22 and the correlation coefficient was 0.74. The means of the differences between the synthetic data and the observations were 0.3, -3.9, -14.4, and -34.9 mm h^-1 and the root mean square errors (RMSEs) were 2.7, 8.3, 19.3, and 39.6 mm h^-1 for the categories of 0.5-10.0, 10.0-30.0, 30.0-50.0, and 50.0-100.0 mm h^-1, respectively. In addition, in each range, the 60% difference between the synthetic precipitation data and the observation data was -1.5 to +1.5, -5.0 to +5.0, -17.0 to +17.0, and -33.0 to +33.0 mm h^-1, respectively. Overall, the correlation coefficient of the synthetic precipitation data was > 0.7 for 43 of the 48 test stations and the RMSE was < 4 mm h^-1 at 31 stations. The results are significant at all evaluation stations at the 0.05 significance level.     

Verification of the vertical motion generation mechanisms in global models and their initial fields in connection with precipitation numerical forecasting

Verification of dynamic mechanisms of vertical motion forcing of four global atmosphere’s models is performed. A new approach to the verification problem is proposed, which includes: (1) choice of a set of physically substantial criteria of the forecasting efficiency (diagnostic characteristics) of the studied mechanisms, (2) computation of these diagnostic characteristics both from the model output data and from objective analysis used in the models, (3) comparison of the computed values in the forecasting fields, reanalysis data at the forecast time and reanalysis fields obtained from different models, (4) estimation of differences between the compared diagnostics not only on the average over the computation domain, but also over the intervals of their values in the whole range. The proposed approach is applied to reveal reasons of errors in precipitation forecasting in two Russian models (the spectral model of T85L31 of Hydrometeorological Research Center of the Russian Federation and semi-Lagrangian model developed in the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for Numerical Mathematics in cooperation with Hydrometcenter of Russia, in comparison with the models of the U.K. Met Office (UKMO) and U.S. National Center for Environment Prediction (NCEP).     

GRAPES全球三维变分同化系统的检验与诊断

中国气象局数值预报中心新近升级的GRAPES全球三维变分同化系统的大气基本状态变量在物理属性与定义的网格和坐标上与预报模式保持一致,是一个完全针对GRAPES预报模式的同化系统。该系统不仅有利于减小分析误差,也是构建GRAPES四维变分同化系统的基本环节之一。该文通过与观测资料的对比、与国际其他业务中心分析场的对比,以及中期数值预报的检验,对新的GRAPES全球三维变分同化系统性能进行较全面讨论,并通过对这一系统的检验,探索资料同化系统性能的检验方法,尤其是观测资料同化效果的定量评价方法。诊断结果表明:在宏观特征上,GRAPES变分同化系统的分析场与欧洲中期数值预报中心和美国国家环境预测中心的分析场十分相似, 但细节上仍有差别。这些差别主要源自GRAPES同化系统中探空、地面报、掩星以及飞机报观测的贡献偏大,而卫星垂直探测仪观测资料的作用尚未充分发挥。从探测单要素来讲,风及湿度观测的作用发挥不够。此外,青藏高原周围地区、模式高层及赤道地区分析场偏差较大,它们与模式地形及高层的处理等有关系,这些问题有待进一步改进。