Search results for "PRECIPITATION"

Regional frequency analysis of extreme rainfall in Sicily (Italy)

2018

Heavy daily precipitation distribution in east-central Franceand west European meteorological patterns

2000

Principal Component Analysis is used to link the spatial distribution of Heavy Daily Precipitation (HDP) in East-Central France with meteorological patterns of the Meteo-France automatic classification, which takes into account 15 different meteorological parameters (e.g. geopotential heights at different levels, humidities, pseudo-adiabatic temperatures) over Western Europe. Every parameter is classified in 10 classes, or synoptic patterns. The annual PCA shows 3 dominant modes of HDP distribution, explaining more than 90% of the total variance. Associated atmospheric situations are obtained by using the scores of the 150 classes (10 per meteorological parameter). Other PCAs (i.e., half-an…

Detection of homogeneous precipitation regions at seasonal and annual time scales, northwest Iran

2017

Abstract Detection of homogeneous climate areas is a challenging issue, which can be affected by different criteria. One of the most prominent factors is choosing the time scale, which can lead to different spatial and temporal patterns. Total precipitation is a key factor in climatological studies, and studying its distribution is of utmost importance. The combination of principal components analysis and cluster analysis is used for homogeneous precipitation areas' detection. Hence, the spatial pattern of total precipitation was investigated in northwestern Iran during the past two decades (1991–2010) on seasonal and annual time scales. The results of clustering on each time scale were val…

Classification of intense rainfall days in southern West Africa and associated atmospheric circulation.

2020

Daily rainfall in southern West Africa (4&ndash

The Added-Value of Remotely-Sensed Soil Moisture Data for Agricultural Drought Detection in Argentina

2021

In countries where the economy relies mostly on agricultural-livestock activities, such as Argentina, droughts cause significant economic losses. Currently, the most-used drought indices by the Argentinian National Meteorological and Hydrological Services are based on field precipitation data, such as the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI). In this article, we explored the performance of the satellite-based soil moisture agricultural drought index (SMADI) for agricultural drought detection in Argentina during 2010-2015, and compared it with the one from the standardized soil moisture anomalies (SSMA), SPI and SPEI (at on…

Recent changes in precipitation, ITCZ convection and northern tropical circulation over North Africa (1979-2007)

2011

This article focuses on some recent changes observed in the Tropics with special emphasis on the African monsoon region using high-resolution gridded precipitation from the Climatic Research Unit (period 1979–2002), outgoing longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and atmospheric reanalyses from the Climate Prediction Center (NCEP-DOE2, period 1979–2007). The results show a rainfall increase in North Africa since the mid-90s with significant northward migrations of rainfall amounts, i.e. + 1.5° for the 400 mm July to September isohyets, whereas deep convection has significantly increased and shifted northward. The subsidence b…

Oceanic and atmospheric linkages with short rainfall season intraseasonal statistics over Equatorial Eastern Africa and their predictive potential

2014

Despite earlier studies over various parts of the world including equatorial Eastern Africa (EEA) showing that intraseasonal statistics of wet and dry spells have spatially coherent signals and thus greater predictability potential, no attempts have been made to identify the predictors for these intraseasonal statistics. This study therefore attempts to identify the predictors (with a 1-month lead time) for some of the subregional intraseasonal statistics of wet and dry spells (SRISS) which showed the greatest predictability potential during the short rainfall season over EEA. Correlation analysis between the SRISS and seasonal rainfall totals on one hand and the predefined predictors on th…

SAL—A Novel Quality Measure for the Verification of Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts

2008

Abstract A novel object-based quality measure, which contains three distinct components that consider aspects of the structure (S), amplitude (A), and location (L) of the precipitation field in a prespecified domain (e.g., a river catchment) is introduced for the verification of quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPF). This quality measure is referred to as SAL. The amplitude component A measures the relative deviation of the domain-averaged QPF from observations. Positive values of A indicate an overestimation of total precipitation; negative values indicate an underestimation. For the components S and L, coherent precipitation objects are separately identified in the forecast and obser…

Spatial Forecast Verification Methods Intercomparison Project: Application of the SAL Technique

2009

Abstract In this study, a recently introduced feature-based quality measure called SAL, which provides information about the structure, amplitude, and location of a quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) in a prespecified domain, is applied to different sets of synthetic and realistic QPFs in the United States. The focus is on a detailed discussion of selected cases and on the comparison of the verification results obtained with SAL and some classical gridpoint-based error measures. For simple geometric precipitation objects it is shown that SAL adequately captures errors in the size and location of the objects, however, not in their orientation. The artificially modified (so-called fake…

The processing of water vapor and aerosols by atmospheric clouds, a global estimate

1995

Recent data published in literature on global cloudiness and precipitation as well as data on updrafts in clouds and their liquid water contents allow us to estimate the global turnover of water vapor and liquid water in the atmosphere. From these turnover rates the global average capacity of clouds to uptake, store and release atmospheric aerosol mass and the rate of wet deposition on the ground was estimated. The results of such an estimate suggest that clouds contribute significantly to the processing of aerosol material in the atmosphere as they constitute an important temporary storage location for it. Although the contribution of aerosol mass resulting from a single evaporation of the…