Raindrop Size Distribution Measurements at 4,500 m on the Tibetan Plateau During TIPEX‐III

Chen, Baojun; Hu, Zhiqun; Liu, Liping; Zhang, Guifu

doi:10.1002/2017jd027233

Cited by 76 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

126

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Thus, the rain rate R can be estimated eventually with the derived DSD. Similar types of results were reported by Chen and Hu () for the precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and the results are also presented in Table . Compared with TP, the second‐degree coefficient of log 10 ( N w )‐ D m for western Pacific is smaller, which might be due to the precipitation over western Pacific containing more large‐size drops than that of TP.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Characteristics of Summer Season Raindrop Size Distribution in Three Typical Regions of Western Pacific

Zhang

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Raindrop size distribution (DSD) measurements were taken with an onboard OTT Particle Size Velocity (Parsivel) disdrometer over the western Pacific during a marine survey from June to July 2014. Three subregions named south western Pacific (SWP), west western Pacific, and north western Pacific were separated for a comparative study of the variability of DSD. In addition to disdrometer data, FengYun‐2E, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, National Centers for Environmental Prediction Global Final Analysis, and radiosonde data sets are used to illustrate the dynamical and microphysical characteristics associated with summer season rainfall of western Pacific. The DSD characteristics of six different rain rates and two rain types (convective and stratiform) were studied. Histograms of normalized intercept parameter log10(Nw) and mass‐weighted mean diameter Dm indicated largest log10(Nw) values in west western Pacific, while largest Dm values in south western Pacific, and the convective clusters in three regions could be identified between maritime like and continental like. The constrained relations between shape μ and slope Λ, Nw, and Dm of gamma DSDs are derived. An inverse relation of the coefficients and exponents of Z‐ARb for convective rain were found in three regions. The R (ZH, ZDR) estimator is proved to be more accurate than Z‐R relation algorithm. And the empirical relations between Dm and radar reflectivity factor in the Ku and Ka bands are also derived to improve the rainfall retrieval algorithms in the open sea of Pacific. Furthermore, the possible causative mechanisms for the significant DSD variability in three regions were investigated with respect to convective intensity, raindrop evaporation, and other meteorological variables.

show abstract

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

“… Note . The red marked parts indicate TP values reported by Chen and Hu () for comparison. SWP = south western Pacific; WWP = west western Pacific; NWP = north western Pacific; TP = Tibetan Plateau.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of Summer Season Raindrop Size Distribution in Three Typical Regions of Western Pacific

Zhang

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As revealed in previous studies (e.g., Chen et al, ; Tokay et al, ), APUs tend to severely underestimate the number of small particles especially for heavy precipitation. With the focus of accurate retrieval on CR rain rate, instead of using the multimoment fit of DSD, this study proposes an alternative approach of only utilizing the APU measured rain rate as a constraint to evaluate the zeroth moment fit of the DSD.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 54%

Investigation of Liquid Cloud Microphysical Properties of Deep Convective Systems: 2. Parameterization of Raindrop Size Distribution and its Application for Convective Rain Estimation

Wang

Dong

2018

JGR Atmospheres

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The liquid cloud microphysical properties for stratiform rain (SR) have been investigated in Part 1 of this series. Since convective rain (CR) has characteristics in raindrop size distribution (DSD) and precipitation that are distinct from SR, we investigate the CR properties in this study by using 20 hr of CR samples collected by 17 Automatic Parsivel Units disdrometers during the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment over the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Southern Great Plains site. A full spectrum of DSD is constructed based on a total of 23 size channels (0.321 to 9.785 mm), and both Gamma and Exponential fitted functions are applied to extract the DSD shape parameters. Compared to SR properties, CR has distinct features including broader size range and narrower exponential slope parameter (λ E ). These results indicate that the assumption of constant exponential intercept parameter (N 0E ) is inappropriate for CR rain rate estimates. Additionally, the subsetting scheme of the CR DSD spectra also has a strong impact on the Gamma/Exponential functions. Therefore, a new CR DSD parameterization scheme is developed by choosing the appropriate spectra subset with the constraint of rain rate and using the constant λ E instead of constant N 0E . With the input of the radar reflectivity at the lowest observed height, the newly calculated CR rain rates match well with the collocated surface rain gauge measurements (127 Mesonet stations and 17 Automatic Parsivel Units), while the rain rates calculated using traditional Z-R relationship are 3-4 times larger, indicating that constant λ E is a better assumption for CR DSD. Figure 7. (a) Comparison of the μ Γ -λ Γ relationships between three different subsets of spectrum from this study and from Cao et al. (2008). (b) Probability distributions of μ Γ from the subsetting scheme of channel 14 and Gaussian.

show abstract

“…Studies indicated that the PARSIVEL disdrometer can produce unreasonable results owing to its inherent limitation [44,61]. The unreasonable data must be removed, and some posterior rainfall quantities need to be recalculated.…”

Section: Parsivel Data Processing and Qcmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, MMCR is generally deployed in conjunction with other instruments, such as with a CL and disdrometer, because it suffers from signal attenuation and is incapable of detecting the cloud base height under precipitating conditions. A CL and disdrometer can complement more reliable and sophisticated measurements of cloud base height and raindrop spectra information [43,44]. Whereas, inversely, they cannot provide measurements of hydrometeors of aloft cloud and precipitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of Warm Clouds and Precipitation in South China during the Pre-Flood Season Using Datasets from a Cloud Radar, a Ceilometer, and a Disdrometer

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The millimeter-wave cloud radar, ceilometer, and disdrometer have been widely used to observe clouds and precipitation. However, there are some drawbacks when those three instruments are solely employed due to their own limitations, such as the fact that radars usually suffer from signal attenuation and ceilometers/disdrometers cannot provide measurements of the hydrometeors of aloft clouds and precipitation. Thus, in this paper, we developed an integrated technology by combining and utilizing the advantages of three instruments together to investigate the vertical structure and diurnal variation of warm clouds and precipitation, and the raindrop size distribution. Specifically, the technology consists of appropriate data processing, quality control, and retrieval methods. It was implemented to study the warm clouds and precipitation in South China during the pre-flood season of 2016. The results showed that the hydrometeors of warm clouds and precipitation were mainly distributed below 2.5 km and most of the rainfall events were very light with a rain rate less than 1 mm h−1, however, the stronger precipitation primarily contributed the accumulated rain amount. Furthermore, a rising trend of cloud base height from 1000 to 1900 BJT was found. The cloud top height and cloud thickness gradually increased from 1200 BJT to reach a maximum at 1600 BJT (Beijing Standard Time, UTC+8), and then decreased until 2000 BJT. Also, three periods of the apparent rainfall on the ground of the day, namely, 0400–0700 BJT, 1400–1800 BJT, and 2300–2400 BJT were observed. During three periods, the raindrops had wider size spectra, higher number concentrations, larger rain rates, and higher water contents than at other times. The hydrometeor type, size, and concentration were gradually changed in the vertical orientation. The raindrop size distributions of warm precipitation in the air and on the ground were different, which can be expressed by γ distributions N(D) = 1.49 × 104D−0.9484exp(−6.79D) in the air and N(D) = 1.875 × 103D0.862exp(−2.444D) on the ground, where D and N(D) denote the diameter and number concentration of the raindrops, respectively.

show abstract

Raindrop Size Distribution Measurements at 4,500 m on the Tibetan Plateau During TIPEX‐III

Cited by 76 publications

References 61 publications

Characteristics of Summer Season Raindrop Size Distribution in Three Typical Regions of Western Pacific

Characteristics of Summer Season Raindrop Size Distribution in Three Typical Regions of Western Pacific

Investigation of Liquid Cloud Microphysical Properties of Deep Convective Systems: 2. Parameterization of Raindrop Size Distribution and its Application for Convective Rain Estimation

Characteristics of Warm Clouds and Precipitation in South China during the Pre-Flood Season Using Datasets from a Cloud Radar, a Ceilometer, and a Disdrometer

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About