Agricultural drought survey using MODIS-based image indices at the regional scale: case study of the Urmia Lake Basin,Iran

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Drought is a natural, global and recurring phenomenon caused by climatic anomalies and inevitable meteorological changes. Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran has...     

A global model study of natural bromine sources and the effects on tropospheric chemistry using MOZART4

Halogens in the atmosphere chemically destroy ozone. In the troposphere, bromine has higher ozone destruction efficiency than chlorine and is the halogen species with the widest geographical spread of natural sources. We investigate the relative strength of various sources of reactive tropospheric bromine and the influence of bromine on tropospheric chemistry using a 6-year simulation with the global chemistry transport model MOZART4. We consider the following sources: short-lived bromocarbons (CHBr₃, CH₂BrCl, CHBr₂Cl, CHBrCl₂, and CH₂Br₂) and CH₃Br, bromine from airborne sea salt particles, and frost flowers and sea salt on or in the snowpack in polar regions. The total bromine emissions in our simulations add up to 31.7 Gmol(Br)/yr: 63 % from polar sources, 24.6 % from short-lived bromocarbons and 12.4 % from airborne sea salt particles. We conclude from our analysis that our global bromine emission is likely to be on the lower end of the range, because of too low emissions from airborne sea salt. Bromine chemistry has an effect on the oxidation capacity of the troposphere, not only due to its direct influence on ozone concentrations, but also by reactions with other key chemical species like HO _x and NO _x . Globally, the impact of bromine chemistry on tropospheric O₃ is comparable to the impact of gas-phase sulfur chemistry, since the inclusion of bromine chemistry in MOZART4 leads to a decrease of the O₃ burden in the troposphere by 6 Tg, while we get an increase by 5 Tg if gas-phase sulfur chemistry is switched off in the standard model. With decreased ozone burden, the simulated oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere decreases thus affecting species associated with the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere (CH₃OOH, H₂O₂).     

Spatiotemporal analysis of precipitation and temperature concentration using PCI and TCI: a case study of Khuzestan Province,Iran

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Temperature and precipitation are the basic elements of climate, and their variation can change the water demands of different uses. In this study, the trend...     

Investigating the topographic and climatic effects on vegetation using remote sensing and GIS: a case study of Kharestan region,Fars Province,Iran

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - This study seeks to investigate the effect of topographic (slope, elevation, and aspect) and climatic (precipitation and temperature) factors on vegetation in...     

Regional analysis of wind climatic erosivity factor: a case study in fars province, southwest Iran

Wind erosion climatic erosivity is a measure of the climatic tendency to produce conditions conducive to wind erosion. This research develops a method to determine the regional climate’s tendency to cause wind erosion on the basis of a physically based climatic factor (CE) and linear moment analysis (L-moments) in Fars province, southwest Iran. CE is calculable from wind speed quantiles and other available meteorological data. The wind quantiles can be estimated by a frequency analysis of the available wind data. Wind speed data are often either not available or are of short record length, and thus, CE estimates from such data have large standard errors. In such a situation, data from several sites can be used to estimate wind speed quantiles at each site based on a regional frequency analysis. Monthly averages of maximum daily wind speed of 19 meteorological stations in Fars province were used for regional analysis. Based on L-moment analysis, two homogeneous regions were determined. Regional wind speed quantiles were calculated, and the results were used to calculate CE values for two 6-month wet and dry periods for each homogeneous region. Furthermore, CE values were estimated for each station in the study area using a Weibull distribution, and the results were compared with the regional-based CE values. It showed that CE values estimated using the regional-based approach have smaller sampling variance compared to those obtained from the Weibull method. The proposed method can be used to evaluate the regional risk of wind erosion in arid and semi-arid environments.     

Assimilation of NCEP multi-sensor hourly rainfall data using 4D-Var approach: A case study of the squall line on April 5, 1999

Summary ?NCEP multi-sensor hourly rainfall data were used for data assimilation and evaluation of quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) through a case study of a squall line on April 5, 1999. Improvements in QPFs were obtained through direct assimilation of these rainfall observations using 4-dimensional variational assimilation (4D-Var). Inclusion of the observed no-rain information was shown to be beneficial to QPFs. While the penalty constraint applying a digital filter was effective in removing high frequency oscillations introduced by rainfall assimilation and produced a smoother “optimal” initial condition, its impact on QPFs is mixed. Sensitivity studies indicated that the adjustments in the moisture and temperature fields resulted from precipitation assimilation played a more important role than those of other state variables for improving QPFs. Received October 27, 2001; accepted January 30, 2002     

Development of a new wavelet-based hybrid model to forecast multi-scalar SPEI drought index (case study: Zanjan city,Iran)

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Drought forecasting plays a vital role in managing drought and reducing its effects on agricultural systems and water resources. In the present study, three...     

Modelling spatial,altitudinal and temporal variability of annual precipitation in mountainous regions: The case of the Middle Zagros,Iran

Relationships between precipitation and elevation are difficult to model for mountainous regions, due to complexities in topography and moisture sources. Attempts to model these relationships need to be tested against long-term location specific meteorological data, and hence require a case-study approach. This study uses artificial neural networks to model these relationships for the Middle of Zagros region, in semi-arid western Iran. Precipitation data for the region were collected for 1995–2007. Annual precipitation was designated as the target variable for the network, which additionally included variables significantly related to precipitation for the region, including longitude, latitude, elevation, slope, distance from the ridge, and relative distance from moisture. Long-term changes in annual precipitation for the region are investigated for 1961–2010. The artificial neural network (ANN) model explains 76% of the spatial variability of precipitation in the Middle Zagros. Precipitation predominantly increases with elevation on the windward slope, to a maximum height of 2500 m.asl, and thereafter either remains constant or decreases slowly to the ridge. Precipitation in the region has decreased significantly over the study period, with fluctuations driven by AO, NAO, ENSO and variability in the strength of pressure centers. Spectral analysis reveals significant oscillations of 2–4 and 5 yr periods, which correspond temporally with cycles in macro-scale circulation, ENSO and the Mediterranean Low pressure.     

Wave propagation and amplification along the surface of discontinuity between air masses of different atmospheric static stabilities: A case study of West African tropospheric air masses

Summary A linearised inviscid form of the hydrodynamical equations is solved in shear, with the aid of a two-layer model of the atmosphere, for waves generated along the boundary between the air masses. Results show that some modes, generated by assuming different atmospheric static stabilities for the two layers of air, propagate and amplify with time; the static stability has been given a novel definition in units of height.A case study, in pressure co-ordinates, of typical tropospheric air masses in West Africa reveals that the mode with the largest growth rate of 1.6 per hour propagates in an East-West (E-W) direction along the surface of discontinuity between the (monsoon) southwesterlies and the (dry) northeasterlies with a phase speed of 7.7 m s^–1, a period of 3.6 hours and a wavelength of 100 km. Similar study inz co-ordinate reveals a mode with a growth rate of 1.8 per hour in an E-W direction, with a phase speed of 8.0 m s^–1, a period of 3.5 hours and a wavelength of 100 km.With 2 Figures     

Spatio-temporal trend analysis of rainfall using parametric and non-parametric tests: case study in Uttarakhand,India

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - This study investigates the spatial and temporal patterns of trends and magnitude of rainfall on monthly, seasonal and annual time scales of 13 districts of...     

Simulations of time-coincident,co-located measurements from ENVISAT-1 instruments for the characterization of tropospheric aerosols: A sensitivity study including cloud contamination effects

A sensitivity test of the aerosol properties retrieval is conducted using nadir viewing instruments on board the ENVISAT-1 platform trying to reproduce the natural variability of the aerosol field. The analysis highlights problems arising in the retrieval when aerosol loading, relative humidity, and cloud coverage are simultaneously varied.     

Analysis of the Microphysical Structure of Heavy Fog Ｕsing a Droplet Spectrometer: A Case Study

The microphysical properties of a long-lasting heavy fog event are examined based on the results from a comprehensive field campaign conducted during the winter of 2006 at Pancheng (32.2°N, 118.7°E), Jiangsu Province, China. It is demonstrated that the key microphysical properties (liquid water content, fog droplet concentration, mean radius and standard deviation) exhibited positive correlations with one another in general, and that the 5-min-average maximum value of fog liquid water content was sometimes ...     

Determining the source of dust storms with use of coupling WRF and HYSPLIT models: A case study of Yazd province in central desert of Iran

Dust storm, which has a significant impact on regional air quality, is one of the most hazardous meteorological phenomena in the arid areas. Yazd province is one of the arid areas in Iran that is exposed to dust storms. In this study, two cases of dust storms of Yazd province are studied with the use of coupling numerical models and aerosol optical depth (AOD) from MODIS data. We investigated synoptic condition of such dust storms that were formed downstream of upper level through in the area by focusing on two storms, on May 24 and 25, 2014. For this purpose, a dynamic coupling of this case is done using WRF output the HYSPLIT model. This model was implemented to investigate the sources of the dust storms by calculating the back trajectories from the receptor sites. The trajectories indicated that the first and the second case storms occurred in the northeast and the south of Yazd respectively. These results also showed a good agreement with MODIS aerosol optical depth data and HYSPLIT back trajectories paths.     

Analyzing long-term spatial variability of blue and green water footprints in a semi-arid mountainous basin with MIROC-ESM model (case study: Kashafrood River Basin,Iran)

Atmospheric modeling is considered an important tool with several applications such as prediction of air pollution levels, air quality management, and environmental impact assessment studies. Therefore, evaluation studies must be continuously made, in order to improve the accuracy and the approaches of the air quality models. In the present work, an attempt is made to examine the air pollution model (TAPM) efficiency in simulating the surface meteorology, as well as the SO₂ concentrations in a mountainous complex terrain industrial area. Three configurations under different circumstances, firstly with default datasets, secondly with data assimilation, and thirdly with updated land use, ran in order to investigate the surface meteorology for a 3-year period (2009–2011) and one configuration applied to predict SO₂ concentration levels for the year of 2011.The modeled hourly averaged meteorological and SO₂ concentration values were statistically compared with those from five monitoring stations across the domain to evaluate the model’s performance. Statistical measures showed that the surface temperature and relative humidity are predicted well in all three simulations, with index of agreement (IOA) higher than 0.94 and 0.70 correspondingly, in all monitoring sites, while an overprediction of extreme low temperature values is noted, with mountain altitudes to have an important role. However, the results also showed that the model’s performance is related to the configuration regarding the wind. TAPM default dataset predicted better the wind variables in the center of the simulation than in the boundaries, while improvement in the boundary horizontal winds implied the performance of TAPM with updated land use. TAPM assimilation predicted the wind variables fairly good in the whole domain with IOA higher than 0.83 for the wind speed and higher than 0.85 for the horizontal wind components. Finally, the SO₂ concentrations were assessed by the model with IOA varied from 0.37 to 0.57, mostly dependent on the grid/monitoring station of the simulated domain. The present study can be used, with relevant adaptations, as a user guideline for future conducting simulations in mountainous complex terrain.     

基于局地增长模培育法的对流可分辨尺度WRF模式对河南“21·7”特大暴雨的预报评估

基于WRF(Weather Research and Forecasting)模式,选取河南“21·7”特大暴雨事件,采用局地增长模培育法(Local Breeding Growth Mode,LBGM)生成对流尺度集合预报系统,在此基础上对24 h累积降水量进行SAL(Structure,Amplitude and Location)检验,结合预报成功指数(Threat Score,TS)、公平成功指数(Equitable Threat Score,ETS)评分等评分结果进行对比分析,综合评估集合预报成员的预报效果,表明:1)基于局地增长模培育法生成初始扰动的集合预报系统成员对于强降水预报有一定优势,在降水强度和位置的预报上与实况较接近;2)经检验,成员e003的TS和ETS评分在20日00时—21日00时(北京时,下同)和21日08时—22日08时两个强降水时段内表现最佳,并在SAL检验中对应较好的降雨强度A和雨区位置L,而成员e008暴雨TS、ETS评分最低,对应SAL检验中具有一定的位置偏差,即TS、ETS评分和SAL检验之间存在相关性,将二者有机结合,可以为业务工作中定量评估模式降水预报效果提供参考;3)通过对比整体评分表现较好的成员e003和较差的成员e008,两者预报的位势高度场与ERA5(ECMWF reanalysis v5,ERA5)再分析资料之间的差值,可以验证降水预报误差主要源于对低涡系统的预报偏差,同时预报评分较好的成员其位势高度偏差较小,综合评估效果更佳。