Microphysical and radiative effects of ice clouds on diurnal variations of tropical convective and stratiform rainfall

Microphysical and radiative effects of ice clouds on diurnal variations of tropical convective and stratiform rainfall are examined with the equilibrium simulation data from three experiments conducted with a two-dimensional cloud resolving model with imposed temporally and zonally invariant winds and sea surface temperature and zero mean vertical velocity. The experiment without ice radiative effects is compared with the control experiment with ice microphysics (both the ice radiative and microphysical effects) to study effects of ice radiative effects on diurnal rainfall variations whereas it is compared with the experiment without ice microphysics to examine ice microphysical effects on the diurnal rainfall variations. The ice radiative processes mainly affect diurnal cycle of convective rainfall whereas the ice microphysical processes have important impacts on the diurnal cycles of both convective and stratiform rainfall. Turning off the ice radiative effects generally enhances convective rainfall during the morning and evening and suppresses convective rainfall in the afternoon whereas turning off the ice microphysical effects generally suppresses convective and stratiform rainfall during the morning and enhances convective and stratiform rainfall in the afternoon and evening. The ice radiative and microphysical effects on the diurnal cycle of surface rainfall are mainly associated with that of vapor condensation and deposition, which is controlled by air temperature through saturation specific humidity. The ice effects on the diurnal cycle of local temperature tendency are largely explained by that of latent heating since the diurnal cycle of radiation is insensitive to the ice effects.     

Black carbon relationships with emissions and meteorology in Xi'an, China

Aerosol black carbon (BC) was measured every 5 min at Xi'an, China from September 2003 to August 2005. Daily BC concentrations ranged from 2 to 65 μg m^− 3, averaging 14.7 ± 9.5 μg m^− 3 and displayed clear summer minima and winter maxima. BC typically peaked between 0800 and 1000 LST and again between 2000 and 2200 LST, corresponding with morning and evening traffic combined with nighttime residential cooking and heating. The nocturnal peak was especially evident in winter, when more domestic heating is used and pollutant-trapping surface-inversions form earlier than in summer. BC frequency distributions the most commonly occurring concentrations occurred between 5 and 10 μg m^− 3 in all four seasons. BC ranged from 1.6% and 15.6%, and averaged 8.3% of PM_2.5. A clear inverse relationship between BC and wind speed (WS) was found when WS was below 2.5 to 3.0 m s^− 1, implying a local origin for BC. Mixed layer depths (MLDs) were shallower during BC episodes compared to cleaner conditions.     

Diurnal variations of circulation and precipitation in the vicinity of the Tibetan Plateau in early summer

A regional climate model (RCM) has been applied to simulate the diurnal variations of the Asian summer monsoon during the early summer period. The ERA40 reanalysis data and the TRMM precipitation data are used to evaluate the performance of the model. The 5-year simulations show that the RCM could simulate well the diurnal cycle of the monsoon circulation over the region. A strong diurnal variation of circulation over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) can be observed at the 500-hPa level, with strong convergence and upward motion in the late afternoon. The diurnal variation of the 500-hPa relative vorticity over the TP associated with the corresponding diurnal variation of convergence may lead to the formation of a prominent plateau-scale cyclonic circulation over the TP during the evening to midnight period. The simulated diurnal variation of precipitation over land is generally better than that over the ocean, particularly over the regions close to the TP such as the Bangladesh region in the southern flank of the TP, where the well-known nocturnal maximum in precipitation is well captured by the RCM. However, the late-afternoon maximum in precipitation over the Southeast Asia region is not well simulated by the RCM. The model results suggest that the diurnal variation of precipitation over the southern flank of the TP is associated with the strong diurnal variation in the circulation over the TP.     

A Multiple-Cell Flat-Level Model for Atmospheric Tracer Dispersion over Complex Terrain

A multiple-cell flat-level tracer dispersion model is developed for atmospheric pollution study. The horizontal domain may be constructed with multiple-sized cells for varied resolution. The sequence of cells is arbitrary, as in unstructured grids, as long as no holes are left in the horizontal domain, which may be tailored in shape according to local orography. The vertical levels are truly flat and the level spacing may vary from level to level. The surface orography is included by removing cells from the bottom of the three-dimensional cell block. The arrangement of wind velocity and tracer concentration is similar to the Arakawa C grid. Advection and horizontal diffusion are formulated on each cell face, using tracer concentrations in the two cells that share the cell face. Pointer-orientated numerical loops are used to facilitate the arbitrary horizontal cell arrangement and orographic variation of vertical levels. A second-order upstream upper limiter advection scheme is developed for this model and numerically tested to be positive-definite and mass conserving. Vertical diffusion is solved with an implicit scheme and simplified vertical diffusivity, which is parameterised as a function of the mixing layer depth. The model is fast, compact, easy to implement and highly portable. It is suitable for studies ofmesoscale and small-scale atmospheric tracer dispersion over complex terrain, including steep slopes. The model is used to simulate traffic pollution in London, UK, and is compared with available observations.     

赤道电离异常特征参量地方时梯度的日变化特征——Swarm卫星观测

Swarm A/C卫星在460 km左右高度伴飞,地方时差异5.6 min,为赤道电离异常（Equatorial Ionization Anomaly,EIA）研究提供了一个绝好的观测机会.本文利用Swarm A/C卫星2014-2017年期间的电子密度观测数据,研究了地磁活动相对平静期EIA特征参量地方时梯度的日变化特征.分析发现：（1）EIA驼峰强度和位置的地方时梯度,ΔNe和Δβ,在正午前随地方时线性减小,午后达到极小值;傍晚前后,二者先增大后减小.该日变化特征在各季节具有普适性.（2）ΔNe和Δβ的日变化表现出紧密的相关性,且在白天和日落后两个时段内遵从明显不同的线性关系.（3）ΔNe和Δβ对赤道等离子体抬升通量地方时梯度,Δflux,的响应非常迅速,滞后时间约为1 h.

     

Diurnal rainfall variability over the Upper Blue Nile Basin: A remote sensing based approach

In this study we aim to assess the diurnal cycle of rainfall across the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin using satellite observations from Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Seven years (2002–2008) of Precipitation Radar (PR) and TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) data are used and analyses are based on GIS operations and simple statistical techniques. Observations from PR and TMI reveal that over most parts of the basin area, the rainfall occurrence and conditional mean rain rate are highest between mid- and late-afternoon (15:00–18:00 LST). Exceptions to this are the south-west and south-eastern parts of the basin area and the Lake Tana basin where midnight and early morning maxima are observed. Along the Blue Nile River gorge the rainfall occurrence and the conditional mean rain rate are highest during the night (20:00–23:00 LST). Orographic effects by large scale variation of topography, elevation and the presence of the UBN river gorge were assessed taking two transects across the basin. Along transects from north to south and from east to west results indicate increased rainfall with increase of elevation whereas areas on the windward side of the high mountain ranges receive higher amount of rainfall than areas on the leeward side. As such, mountain ranges and elevation affect the rainfall distribution resulting in rain shadow effect in the north-eastern parts of Choke-mountain and the ridges in the north-east of the basin. Moreover, a direct relation between rainfall occurrence and elevation is observed specifically for 17:00–18:00 LST. Further, results indicate that the rainfall distribution in the deeply incised and wide river gorge is affected with relatively low rainfall occurrence and low mean rainfall rates in the gorge areas. Seasonal mean rainfall depth is highest in the south-west area and central highlands of the basin while areas in the north, north-east and along the Blue Nile gorge receive the least amount of rainfall. Statistical results of this work show that the diurnal cycle of rainfall occurrence from TRMM estimates show significant correlation with the ground observations at 95% confidence level. In the UBN basin, the PR conditional mean rain rate estimates are closer to the ground observations than the TMI. Analysis on mean wet season rainfall amount indicates that PR generally underestimates and TMI overestimates the ground observed rainfall.     

祁连山老虎沟12号冰川辐射各分量年变化特征

在资料比较稀少的山地冰川进行辐射收支研究对于揭示现代冰川发育的水热条件以及冰川与气候的相互关系具有重要意义.利用祁连山老虎沟12号冰川海拔5 040 m自动气象站资料,分析了2008年10月20日至2009年10月19日的辐射各分童年变化和平均日变化特征,结果表明:整年气温月平均值都高于冰川表面温度,大气是冰川的感热热...     

Hourly Variation of Surface Urban Heat Island over the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration

Great progress has been made on the remote investigation of Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) across multiple time scales. However, limited by the remote sensing models and resolution tradeoff of satellite-derived Land Surface Temperatures (LSTs), currently the hourly regimes of SUHI over typical urban agglomerations in typical seasons remain unclear. Using MODIS imageries as the main data source as well as by incorporating a diurnal temperature cycle model (i.e., INA08), this study, to our knowledge, firstly examined the hourly variations of the spatial pattern and intensity of the SUHIs for the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration in both the summer and winter. The results demonstrated that, in the summer, a general trend of ‘heat island’ was observed for every city during a diurnal cycle. ‘Cold spots’ also occur within most of the cities from around 08:00 to 21:00, mostly as a result of the cooling effect of urban vegetation or water body under strong solar insolation. However, these ‘cold spots’ disappear after 21:00. For this season, the hourly variations of the SUHI intensity are similar to those of the LSTs: They both rise rapidly in the morning, reach the maxima at around 12:00 to 14:00, then gradually decrease and continue until the sunrise of the next day. In the winter, surface urban cool islands (SUCIs) were observed for most of the cities, but these SUCIs mostly disappear during the afternoon to the early evening (around 14:00~17: 00), and then all the cities bounce back to exhibit heat islands. Within this season, the hourly variations of the SUHI intensity differ from those of the LST. There also exist large differences of the hourly variations of SUHI intensity between using the rural area and forest as the non-urban background for estimation of the intensity, with the former reaching its maximum (around 18:00) significantly later than the latter reaching its maximum (around 13:30).