Heating, Moisture, and Water Budgets of Tropical and Midlatitude Squall Lines: Comparisons and Sensitivity to Longwave Radiation

Tao, Wei‐Kuo; Simpson, Joanne; Sui, C.-H.; Ferrier, Brad S.; Lang, S.; Scala, John R.; Chou, Ming Dah; Pickering, Kenneth

doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1993)050<0673:hmawbo>2.0.co;2

Cited by 213 publications

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“…On one hand, the two rain types produce distinctively different latent heating profiles due to the different microphysical processes associated with precipitation formation. It is known that convective rains have a bell-shaped heating profile with maximum heating in the mid troposphere, while stratiform rains have a dipole heating profile with heating in the mid troposphere and cooling in the lower troposphere (Tao et al 1993). Better knowledge of the rain type statistics and precipitation vertical distribution is therefore helpful in understanding and modeling atmospheric energetics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Precipitation Characteristics in Mid-Latitude East Asia as Observed by TRMM PR and TMI

Liu

2003

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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Precipitation radar and microwave radiometer data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite during the spring and summer months of 1998 are used to study the precipitation characteristics in the mid-latitude East Asia region (20 -40 N, 100 -140 E), with particular emphasis on comparing the differences between stratiform and convective rains, and between rains during spring and summer. The characteristics in the mid-latitude are also compared with those in the tropics. The two-season mean results for the mid-latitudes show that the mean rainfall rate for stratiform clouds is @2 mm h À1 , at least 6 times lower than its convective counterpart. The mean convective rainfall rate is higher over land than over ocean, and higher in the mid-latitude than in the tropics. Generally, convective clouds generate more rain total for both mid-latitudes and tropics although they cover less area than stratiform clouds. Comparing between mid-latitude and tropical regions, the contribution of stratiform rains is larger in the mid-latitudes than in the tropics.There are distinct differences between stratiform and convective precipitation profiles, as well as noticeable seasonal variations of these profiles. The mean vertical profiles showed that stratiform rains have a quasi-constant rainfall rate below freezing level and a sharp drop-off above. Convective profiles, on the other hand, often have a maximum rainfall rate somewhere below the freezing level. Above the freezing level, precipitation layer for convective rains is thicker than for stratiform rains. For convective rains, significant differences are found between profiles over land and ocean, with a significant deeper layer for land convections given the same surface rainfall rate. Consistently, microwave scattering signature over land, expressed by polarization-corrected temperature at 85 GHz, is nearly twice as strong as that over ocean for the same surface rainfall rate. Precipitation profiles are similar in shape and depth between mid-latitude and tropical regions during summer when the freezing level heights are also similar between the two regions. However, compared to being no noticeable variation in the tropics during a year, there is a significant seasonal change for the precipitation profiles in mid-latitudes. The seasonal difference of precipitation profiles arises from the deeper precipitation layer in the summer than in Corresponding Author: Guosheng Liu, Department of Meteorology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4520, USA. E-mail: liug@met.fsu.edu ( 2003, Meteorological Society of Japan the spring for a given surface rainfall rate, being in consistent with the seasonal variation of the freezing level height. This change in precipitation depth applies to both stratiform and convective rains, and to rains over both land and ocean. It should be mentioned that all the aforementioned results, except for the 85 GHz scattering signature, are derived from TRMM precipitation radar data.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Clouds and precipitation play an important role in determining regional and global climate by redistributing water and heat in the atmosphere (Simpson et al 1988;Tao et al 1993). Studies show that precipitations may be divided into two main types: convective and stratiform (Houze 1993).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Precipitation Characteristics in Mid-Latitude East Asia as Observed by TRMM PR and TMI

Liu

2003

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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“…The initial and lateral boundary conditions are obtained from operational global T80 model of NCMRWF. Two experiments are carried out using two schemes of explicit treatment of moisture in the model -GSFC based on Tao et al (1989Tao et al ( , 1993 and SCHULTZ based on Schultz (1995). The GSFC scheme is based on NASA/Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) cloud microphysics scheme.…”

Section: Configuration Of Mm5mentioning

confidence: 72%

Simulation of a Himalayan cloudburst event

2006

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Intense rainfall often leads to floods and landslides in the Himalayan region even with rainfall amounts that are considered comparatively moderate over the plains; for example, 'cloudbursts', which are devastating convective phenomena producing sudden high-intensity rainfall (∼ 10 cm per hour) over a small area. Early prediction and warning of such severe local weather systems is crucial to mitigate societal impact arising from the accompanying flash floods. We examine a cloudburst event in the Himalayan region at Shillagarh village in the early hours of 16 July 2003. The storm lasted for less than half an hour, followed by flash floods that affected hundreds of people. We examine the fidelity of MM5 configured with multiple-nested domains (81, 27, 9 and 3 km gridresolution) for predicting a cloudburst event with attention to horizontal resolution and the cloud microphysics parameterization. The MM5 model predicts the rainfall amount 24 hours in advance. However, the location of the cloudburst is displaced by tens of kilometers.

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“…The contrast in mesoscale organization, as well as the differential tilting of cloud structures (Redelsperger et al 2000) would affect the partitioning between convective and stratiform regions, and thus the latent heating profiles. Based on the partitioning technique of Tao et al (1993), the stratiform contribution to the total rainfall in the twodimensional experiment is about 7% greater than in the three-dimensional experiment. The enhanced stratiform proportion in two dimensions would encourage largescale organization according to the stratiform-instability theory.…”

Section: Convective Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Dimensionality on Simulated Large-Scale Convective Organization and Coupled Waves

Liu

Moncrieff

Hsu

et al. 2012

Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan

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Tropical multi-scale convective organization of the super-cluster kind and convectively coupled gravity waves are investigated by both two and three-dimensional cloud-system-resolving simulations. The experimental setup includes a constant-temperature ocean surface, constant and horizontally-uniform radiative cooling in the troposphere, and a uniform easterly background wind. The objective of this study is to quantify the impacts of dimensionality on the simulated large-scale convective patterns and associated gravity waves.Eastward propagating large-scale coherent precipitating convection occurs regardless of the spatial dimension. The convective organization has a horizontal wavenumber-one structure in the computational domain and travels at about 13-17 m s −1 relative to the ground, equivalent to 19-23 m s −1 relative to the environmental flow. However, the convectivelyinduced wave signature is much weaker in three dimensions than in two dimensions, as well as a faster translation and a smaller tilt of the vertical. Moreover, a two-dimensional framework generates additional organizational modes compared to the three-dimensional results, including a fast westward-moving system with a mean-flow-relative speed comparable to the eastward-moving wavenumber-1 counterpart and the quasi-stationary (relative to the background flow) higher wavenumber precipitating system. This does not necessarily imply that these additional modes are artifacts of two dimensionality.

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Heating, Moisture, and Water Budgets of Tropical and Midlatitude Squall Lines: Comparisons and Sensitivity to Longwave Radiation

Cited by 213 publications

References 0 publications

Precipitation Characteristics in Mid-Latitude East Asia as Observed by TRMM PR and TMI

Precipitation Characteristics in Mid-Latitude East Asia as Observed by TRMM PR and TMI

Simulation of a Himalayan cloudburst event

Effects of Dimensionality on Simulated Large-Scale Convective Organization and Coupled Waves

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