Measurement uncertainty in rainfall kinetic energy and intensity relationships for soil erosion studies: An evaluation using PARSIVEL disdrometers in the Southern Appalachian Mountains

Understanding How Low-Level Clouds and Fog Modify the Diurnal Cycle of Orographic Precipitation Using In Situ and Satellite Observations

“…Notwithstanding the approximations in the model and the limitations in the observations, the improved model prediction of rain accumulation (with fog spectra #4) against the simulation without fog is ~8 mm that is 65% of the total RG accumulation. Similar rainfall enhancement was captured in long-term paired fog and rainfall observations at all locations marked in Figure 1b as well as elsewhere across the SAM by contrasting paired high and low elevation observations [15,18,58]. These results highlight the remarkable contribution of LLCF to the enhanced rainfall intensity in agreement with the observations.…”

“…In the SAM, which are representative of middle mountains in the tropics and mid-latitudes that are hosts to high biodiversity cloud forests and generally humid ecosystems, nearly a decade of ground-based rainfall accumulation and rainfall microphysics, show that the diurnal cycle of rainfall exhibits an all-season mid-day peak that explains a large fraction of the regional annual freshwater input, and it is critical to regional drought resilience [15,54]. Over roughly the last decade, independent field observations of vertical structure of rainfall, rainfall microphysics, and rainfall intensity and accumulation in the SAM show evidence of low-level enhancement of R-DSDs with rainfall intensities up to one order of magnitude and rainfall accumulations on the order of 200-300% at daily, seasonal and annual time-scales [15,18,58]. These observations are indicative of space-time distributions of rainfall that do not fit the classical orographic precipitation model with strong upslope enhancement characteristic of high-mountain ranges, consistent with the lack of a rain-shadow region in the SE US.…”

“…Following Wilson and Barros [18] and Angulo-Martínez and Barros [58] who demonstrated the impact of SFI in amplifying rainfall over the inner mountain region, here the investigation was extended to the western slopes of the SAM using in situ observations and modeling. First, a rainfall column microphysics model constrained by fog observations was used to investigate how SFI modify the R-DSD to reveal that fast SFI (2-5 min time-scales) modify the R-DSD by increasing coalescence efficiency in the small drop range (<0.7 mm diameter), whereas competition between coalescence and breakup dominates for larger drop (3-5 mm diameter).…”

Two months of disdrometer data in the Paris area

“…The DSD also enables to compute the kinetic energy of rainfall which is critical to the understanding and modelling of soil erosion (see van Dijk et al, 2002, for a review). Studies of the relation 10 between rainfall intensity and kinetic energy using disdrometers have been carried out with actual rainfall (Angulo-Martínez and Barros, 2015;Angulo-Martínez et al, 2016) or artificial one (Meshesha et al, 2016). DSD also has an impact on the spread of crop disease (Huber and Gillespie, 1992) notably through the dispersal of pathogens through splashing (Walklate, 1989;Walklate et al, 1989).…”

Two months of disdrometer data in the Paris area

“…The DSD also enables the kinetic energy of rainfall to be computed, which is critical to the understanding and modelling of soil erosion (see van Dijk et al, 2002, for a review). Studies of the relation between rainfall intensity and kinetic energy using disdrometers have been carried out with actual rainfall (Angulo-Martínez and Barros, 2015;Angulo-Martínez et al, 2016) or artificial rainfall (Meshesha et al, 2016). The DSD also has an impact on the spread of crop disease (Huber and Gillespie, 1992), notably through the dispersal of pathogens through splashing (Walklate, 1989;Walklate et al, 1989).…”