Search results for "PRECIPITATION"

The ACRIDICON-CHUVA campaign: Studying tropical deep convective clouds and precipitation over Amazonia using the new German research aircraft HALO

2016

Abstract Between 1 September and 4 October 2014, a combined airborne and ground-based measurement campaign was conducted to study tropical deep convective clouds over the Brazilian Amazon rain forest. The new German research aircraft, High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft (HALO), a modified Gulfstream G550, and extensive ground-based instrumentation were deployed in and near Manaus (State of Amazonas). The campaign was part of the German–Brazilian Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Radiation Interactions and Dynamics of Convective Cloud Systems–Cloud Processes of the Main Precipitation Systems in Brazil: A Contribution to Cloud Resolving Modeling and to the GPM (Global Precipitatio…

High‐resolution simulations of convective cold pools over the northwestern Sahara

2009

[1] Cooling by evaporation of convective precipitation in the deep and dry subcloud layer over desert regions can generate intense downdrafts and long-lived and extensive atmospheric density currents. The strong gusts at their leading edges can cause so-called haboob dust storms. Despite their importance for the dust cycle, the ability of state-of-the-art numerical weather prediction models to realistically simulate the associated convective cold pools has been investigated very little to date. During the first field campaign of the Saharan Mineral Dust Experiment in southern Morocco in May/June 2006, several density currents were observed. They were triggered by deep moist convection over …

Aerosol characteristics and particle production in the upper troposphere over the Amazon Basin

2018

Airborne observations over the Amazon Basin showed high aerosol particle concentrations in the upper troposphere (UT) between 8 and 15 km altitude, with number densities (normalized to standard temperature and pressure) often exceeding those in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude. The measurements were made during the German–Brazilian cooperative aircraft campaign ACRIDICON–CHUVA, where ACRIDICON stands for Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Radiation Interactions and Dynamics of Convective Cloud Systems and CHUVA is the acronym for Cloud Processes of the Main Precipitation Systems in Brazil: A Contribution to Cloud Resolving Modeling and to the GPM …

Multi-model simulations of a convective situation in low-mountain terrain in central Europe

2008

The goal of the present study is to investigate the variability of simulated convective precipitation by three convection-resolving models using different set-ups and initial and boundary conditions. The COSMO, MM5 and WRF models have been used to simulate the atmospheric situation on 12 July 2006, when local convection occurred in central Europe under weak synoptic forcing. The focus of this investigation is on the convective precipitation in the northern Black Forest in South-West Germany. The precipitation fields from the nine model simulations differ considerably. Six simulations capture the convective character of the event. However, they differ considerably in the location and timing …

2015

Abstract. A recent parcel model study (Reutter et al., 2009) showed three deterministic regimes of initial cloud droplet formation, characterized by different ratios of aerosol concentrations (NCN) to updraft velocities. This analysis, however, did not reveal how these regimes evolve during the subsequent cloud development. To address this issue, we employed the Active Tracer High Resolution Atmospheric Model (ATHAM) with full microphysics and extended the model simulation from the cloud base to the entire column of a single pyro-convective mixed-phase cloud. A series of 2-D simulations (over 1000) were performed over a wide range of NCN and dynamic conditions. The integrated concentration …

Uncertainties in future climate predictions due to convection parameterisations

2013

Abstract. In the last decades several convection parameterisations have been developed to consider the impact of small-scale unresolved processes in Earth System Models associated with convective clouds. Global model simulations, which have been performed under current climate conditions with different convection schemes, significantly differ among each other in the simulated transport of trace gases and precipitation patterns due to the parameterisation assumptions and formulations, e.g. the computation of convective rainfall rates, calculation of entrainment and detrainment rates etc. Here we address sensitivity studies comparing four different convection schemes under alternative climate…

A PCA-based clustering algorithm for the identification of stratiform and convective precipitation at the event scale: an application to the sub-hour…

2021

AbstractUnderstanding the structure of precipitation and its separation into stratiform and convective components is still today one of the important and interesting challenges for the scientific community. Despite this interest and the advances made in this field, the classification of rainfall into convective and stratiform components is still today not trivial. This study applies a novel criterion based on a clustering approach to analyze a high temporal resolution precipitation dataset collected for the period 2002–2018 over the Sicily (Italy). Starting from the rainfall events obtained from this dataset, the developed methodology makes it possible to classify the rainfall events into f…

Classification of precipitation events with a convective response timescale and their forecasting characteristics

2011

[1] The convective timescale τc, which is mainly determined by the ratio of CAPE and precipitation rate, provides a physically-based measure to distinguish equilibrium and non-equilibrium convection. A statistical analysis of this timescale, based upon observational data from radiosonde ascents, rain gauges, and radar for seven warm seasons in Germany, reveals that the equilibrium and non-equilibrium regimes can be regarded as extremes of a continuous distribution. The two regimes characterize very different interactions between the large-scale flow and convection. The quality of precipitation forecasts from a non-hydrostatic regional weather prediction model with parameterized convection d…

Ice Initiation for Various Ice Nuclei Types and its Infl uence on Precipitation Formation in Convective Clouds

2007

Cloud droplet number closure for tropical convective clouds during the ACRIDICON–CHUVA campaign

2021

The main objective of the ACRIDICON-CHUVA (Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Radiation Interactions and Dynamics of Convective Cloud Systems–Cloud Processes of the Main Precipitation Systems in Brazil: A Contribution to Cloud Resolving Modeling and to the Global Precipitation measurements) campaign in September 2014 was the investigation of aerosol-cloud-interactions in the Amazon Basin. Cloud properties near cloud base of growing convective cumuli were characterized by cloud droplet size distribution measurements using a cloud combination probe (CCP) and a cloud and aerosol spectrometer (CAS-DPOL). In the current study, an adiabatic parcel model was used to perform cloud droplet number (N…