Rainfall – The Social Metwork

Cloud-Radiation Interactions and Their Contributions to Convective Self-Aggregation

December 3, 2021December 3, 2021kierannpopeLeave a comment

Kieran Pope – k.n.pope@pgr.reading.ac.uk

Convective self-aggregation is the process by which initially randomly scattered convection becomes spontaneously clustered in space despite uniform initial conditions. This process was first identified in numerical models, however it is relevant to real world convection (Holloway et al., 2017). Tropical weather is dominated by convection, and the degree of convective aggregation has important consequences for weather and climate. A more organised regime is associated with reduced cloudiness, increased longwave emission to space (Bretherton et al., 2005), and a higher frequency of long-lasting extreme precipitation events (Bao and Sherwood, 2019).

Because of its relevance to weather and climate, self-aggregation has been the focus of many recent studies. However, there is still much debate as to the processes that cause aggregation. There is great variability in the rate and degree of aggregation between models, and there remains uncertainty as to how aggregation is affected by climate change (Wing et al., 2020). Previous studies have shown that feedbacks between convection and shortwave & longwave radiation are key drivers and maintainers of aggregation (e.g. Wing & Cronin 2016), and that interactive radiation in models is essential for aggregation to occur (Muller & Bony 2015).

This blog summarises results from the first paper from my PhD (Pope et al., 2021), where we develop and use a framework to analyse how radiative interactions with different cloud types contribute to aggregation. We analyse self-aggregation within a set of three idealised simulations of the UK Met Office Unified Model (UM). The simulations are configured in radiative-convective equilibrium over three fixed sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of 295, 300 and 305 K. They are convection permitting models that are 432 × 6048 km² in size with a 3 km horizontal grid spacing. The simulations neglect the earth’s rotation, so they approximately represent convection over tropical oceans within a warming climate.

Our analysis framework is based on that used in Wing and Emanuel (2014) which uses the variance of vertically-integrated frozen moist static energy (FMSE) as a measure of aggregation. FMSE is a measure of the total energy an air parcel has if all the water (vapour and frozen) was converted to liquid, neglecting its velocity. Variations in vertically-integrated FMSE come from perturbations in temperature and humidity. As aggregation increases, moist regions get moister and dry regions get drier, so the variance of vertically-integrated FMSE increases.

The problem with using FMSE variance as an aggregation metric is that it is highly sensitive to SST. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour via the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship. This means there is a greater difference in FMSE between the moist and dry regions for higher-SST simulations, so the variance of FMSE is typically much greater for higher SSTs. To account for this problem, we normalise FMSE between hypothetical upper and lower limits which are functions of SST. This gives a value of normalised FMSE between 0 and 1.

Wing and Emanuel (2014) derive a budget equation for the rate of change of FMSE variance which shows how different processes contribute to aggregation. By rederiving their equation for normalised FMSE , we get:

$\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}\frac{\partial\widehat{h'}_n^2}{\partial t} = \widehat{h'}_nLW'_n + \widehat{h'}_nSW'_n + \widehat{h'}_nSEF'_n - \widehat{h'}_n\nabla_h\cdot\widehat{\textbf{u}h_n}$

where $\widehat{h}$ is vertically-integrated FMSE, $LW$ and $SW$ are the net atmospheric column longwave and shortwave heating rates, $SEF$ is the surface enthalpy flux, made up of the surface latent and sensible heat fluxes, and $\nabla h \cdot \widehat{\textbf{u}h}$ is the horizontal divergence of the $\widehat{h}$ flux. Primes ( $'$ ) indicate local anomalies from the instantaneous domain mean. The subscript ( $_n$ ) denotes a normalised variable which is the original variable divided by the difference between the hypothetical upper and lower limits of $\widehat{h}$ . The equation shows that the rate of change of $\widehat{h'}_n$ variance (left hand side term) is driven by interactions between $\widehat{h}_n$ anomalies and anomalies in normalised net longwave heating, shortwave heating, surface fluxes and advection.

Figure 1: Hovmöller plots of normalised FMSE for each SST
Figure 2: (a) Time series of vertically-integrated FMSE variance, (b) Time series of normalised vertically-integrated FMSE variance for each SST

We use the variance of $\widehat{h}_n$ as our aggregation metric. Hovmöller plots of $\widehat{h}_n$ are shown in Figure 1 for each of our SSTs. In these plots, $\widehat{h}_n$ is averaged along the short axis of our domains. The plots show how initially randomly-distributed convection organises into bands which expand until the point where there are 4 to 5 quasi-stationary bands of moist convective regions separated by dry subsiding regions. This demonstrates that once our domains become fully-aggregated, the degree of aggregation appears similar. Figure 2a shows time series of each of the variance of $\widehat{h}_n$ , and shows that the variance of non-normalised $\widehat{h}_n$ is ~4 times greater for our 305 K simulations compared to our 295 K simulation. Figure 2b shows time series of the variance of $\widehat{h}_n$ . From this, we can see the convection aggregates faster as SST increases, yet the degree of aggregation remains similar via this metric once the convection is fully aggregated. Values of $\widehat{h}_n$ variance around 10^-4 or lower correspond to randomly scattered convection, whereas values greater that 10^-3 are associated with strongly aggregated convection.

Figure 3: Maps of (a) cloud condensed water path, (b) vertically-integrated FMSE anomaly, (c) longwave heating anomaly, (d) shortwave heating anomaly. Snapshots at day 100 of the 300 K simulation.

To understand the processes contributing to aggregation, we have to look to Equation 1. We mainly focus on the two radiative terms on the right hand side. The terms show that regions in which the radiative anomalies and the $\widehat{h}_n$ anomalies have the same sign contribute to aggregation. We can start to get an intuitive understanding of this concept by looking at maps of these variables. Figure 3b-d show maps of $\widehat{h'}_n$ , $LW'$ and $SW'$ . We can see $SW'$ and $\widehat{h'}$ are closely correlated since $SW'$ is mainly determined by the shortwave absorption by water vapour. Clouds have little effect on the shortwave heating rates, with ~90% of the shortwave heating rate in cloudy regions being due to absorption by water vapour. $LW'$ is closely linked to cloud condensed water path (Figure 3a). This is because the majority of our clouds are high-topped clouds which, due to their cold cloud tops, are able to prevent longwave radiation escaping to space, so they are associated with positive longwave heating anomalies.

The sensitivity of the budget terms to both aggregation and SST can be seen in Figure 4. This figure is made by creating 50 bins of $\widehat{h}_n$ variance and then averaging the budget terms in space and time for each bin and for each SST. Where the terms are positive, they are helping to increase aggregation. Where they are negative, the terms are opposing aggregation. The terms tend to increase in magnitude since every term has $\widehat{h'}_n$ as a factor, which increases with aggregation by definition.

Figure 4: Terms in Equation 1 vs normalised FMSE variance for each SST

In general, we find the longwave term is the dominant driver of aggregation, being insensitive to SST during the growth phase of aggregation. Once the aggregation is mature, the longwave term remains the dominant maintainer of aggregation, however its contribution to aggregation maintenance decreases with SST. The shortwave term is initially small at early times but becomes a key maintainer of aggregation within highly-aggregated environments. This is because humidity variations are initially small, so there is little variation in shortwave heating. Once the convection is aggregated, moist regions are very moist and dry regions are very dry, so there is a large difference in shortwave heating between moist and dry regions. The variations in shortwave heating remain very similar with SST, meaning shortwave heating anomalies contribute the same amount to non-normalised $\widehat{h}$ variance. Therefore, shortwave heating contributes less to aggregation at higher SSTs because they contribute to a smaller fraction of $\widehat{h}$ anomalies. The radiative terms are balanced by the surface flux term (negative because there is greater evaporation in dry regions) and the advection term (negative because circulations tend to smooth out $\widehat{h'}_n$ gradients). The decrease in the magnitude of the radiative terms with SST is balanced by the surface flux and advection terms becoming more positive with SST.

To understand the behaviour of the longwave term, we define different cloud types based on the vertical profile of cloud, assigning one cloud type per grid box in a similar way to Hill et al. (2018). We define a lower and upper level pressure threshold, assigning cloud below the lower threshold to a “Low” category, cloud above the upper threshold to a “High” category, and cloud in between to a “Mid” category. If cloud occurs in more than one of these layers, then it is assigned to a combined category. In total, there are eight cloud types: Clear, Low, Mid, Mid & Low, High, High & Low, High & Mid, and Deep. We can then find each cloud type’s contribution to the longwave term by multiplying the cloud’s mean [Equation] covariance by its domain fraction.

To see how the cloud type contributions change with aggregation, we define a Growth phase and Mature phase of aggregation. The Growth phase has $\widehat{h}_n$ variance between $3\times10^{-4}$ and $4\times10^{-4}$ and the Mature phase has $\widehat{h}$ variance between $1.5\times10^{-3}$ and $2\times 10^{-3}$ . The contribution of longwave interactions with each cloud type to aggregation during these two phases is shown in Figure 5a, with their mean $LW'\times\widehat{h'}$ covariance and fraction shown in Figures 5b & c.

Figure 5: Mean (a) contribution to the longwave term in Equation 1, (b) normalised longwave-FMSE covariance, (c) cloud fraction for the Growth phase (dots) and Mature phase (open circles). Data points for each category are in order of SST increasing to the right.

We find that longwave interactions with high-topped clouds and clear regions drive aggregation during the Growth phase (Figure 5a). This is because high clouds are abundant, have positive longwave heating anomalies and occur in moist, high $\widehat{h}$ environments. The clear regions are the most abundant category, have typically negative longwave heating anomalies and tend to occur in low $\widehat{h}$ regions, so their $LW'\times\widehat{h'}$ covariance is positive. During the Growth phase, there is little SST sensitivity within each category. During the Mature phase, longwave interactions with high-topped cloud remain the main maintainer of aggregation however their contribution decreases with SST. This sensitivity is mainly because there is a greater decrease in high-topped cloud fraction with aggregation as SST increases. This also has consequences for the $LW'\times\widehat{h'}$ covariance of the clear regions. As high-topped cloud fraction reduces, the domain-mean longwave cooling increases. This makes the radiative cooling of the clear regions less anomalous, resulting in an increasingly negative $LW'\times\widehat{h'}$ covariance during the Mature phase as SST increases.

There is great variability in the degrees of aggregation within numerical models, which has important consequences for weather and climate modelling (Wing et al. 2020). With cloud-radiation interactions being crucial for aggregation, understanding how these interactions vary between models may help to explain the differences in aggregation. This study provides a framework by which a comparison of cloud-radiation interactions and their contributions to convective self-aggregation between models and SSTs can be achieved.

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REFERENCES

Bao, J., & Sherwood, S. C. (2019). The role of convective self-aggregation in extreme instantaneous versus daily precipitation. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 11(1), 19– 33. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018MS001503

Bretherton, C. S., Blossey, P. N., & Khairoutdinov, M. (2005). An energy-balance analysis of deep convective self-aggregation above uniform SST. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 62(12), 4273– 4292. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS3614.1

Hill, P. G., Allan, R. P., Chiu, J. C., Bodas-Salcedo, A., & Knippertz, P. (2018). Quantifying the contribution of different cloud types to the radiation budget in Southern West Africa. Journal of Climate, 31(13), 5273– 5291. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0586.1

Holloway, C. E., Wing, A. A., Bony, S., Muller, C., Masunaga, H., L’Ecuyer, T. S., & Zuidema, P. (2017). Observing convective aggregation. Surveys in Geophysics, 38(6), 1199– 1236. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-017-9419-1

Muller, C., & Bony, S. (2015). What favors convective aggregation and why? Geophysical Research Letters, 42(13), 5626– 5634. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064260

Pope, K. N., Holloway, C. E., Jones, T. R., & Stein, T. H. M. (2021). Cloud-radiation interactions and their contributions to convective self-aggregation. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 13, e2021MS002535. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021MS002535

Wing, A. A., & Cronin, T. W. (2016). Self-aggregation of convection in long channel geometry. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 142(694), 1– 15. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.2628

Wing, A. A., & Emanuel, K. A. (2014). Physical mechanisms controlling self-aggregation of convection in idealized numerical modeling simulations. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 6(1), 59– 74. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013MS000269

Wing, A. A., Stauffer, C. L., Becker, T., Reed, K. A., Ahn, M.-S., Arnold, N., & Silvers, L. (2020). Clouds and convective self-aggregation in a multi-model ensemble of radiative-convective equilibrium simulations. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 12(9), e2020MS0021380. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020MS0021380

The onset and end of wet seasons over Africa

April 27, 2017April 28, 2017Caroline Dunning2 Comments

Email: c.m.dunning@pgr.reading.ac.uk

For many Africans, the timing of the wet season is of crucial importance, especially for those reliant upon subsistence agriculture, who depend on the seasonal rains for crop irrigation. In addition, the wet season recharges lakes, rivers and water storage tanks which constitute the domestic water supply in some areas. The timing of the wet season also affects the availability of energy from hydroelectric schemes, and has impacts upon the prevalence of certain disease carrying vectors, such as mosquitoes.

Climate change is already threatening many vulnerable populations, and changes in the timing or intensity of the wet season, or increasing uncertainty in the timing of the onset, may lead to significant socio-economic impacts. But before we consider future projections or past changes in the seasonality, we need to go back a few steps.

The first step is to find a method for determining when the wet season starts and ends (its ‘onset’ and ‘cessation’). In order to look at large-scale shifts in the timing of the wet season and relate this to wider-scale drivers, this method needs to be applicable across the entirety of continental Africa. Most previous methods for determining the onset focus on the national to regional scale, and are dependent on the exceedance of a certain threshold e.g. the ﬁrst week with at least 20mm of rainfall, with one rainfall event of more than 10mm, and no dry spell of more than 10 days after the rain event for the next month. While such definitions work well at a national scale they are not applicable at a continental scale where rainfall amounts vary substantially. A threshold suitable for the dry countries at the fringes of the Sahara would not be suitable in the wetter East African highlands.

In addition to a vast range of rainfall amounts, the African continent also spans multiple climatic regimes. The seasonal cycle of precipitation over continental Africa is largely driven by the seasonal progression of the ITCZ and associated rain belts, which follows the maximum incoming solar radiation. In the boreal summer, when the thermal equator sits between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer, the ITCZ sits north of the equator and West Africa and the Sahel experience a wet season. During the boreal autumn the ITCZ moves south, and southern Africa experiences a wet season during the austral summer, followed by the northward return of the ITCZ during the boreal spring. As a consequence of this, central African regions and the Horn of Africa experience two wet seasons per year – one as the ITCZ travels north, and a second as the ITCZ travels south. A method for determining the onset and cessation at the continental scale thus needs to account for regions with multiple wet seasons per year.

In our paper (available here) we propose such a method, based on the method of Liebmann et al (2012). The method has three steps:

Firstly, determine the number of seasons experienced per year at the location (or grid point) of interest. This is achieved using harmonic analysis – the amplitude of the first and second harmonic were computed, using the entire timeseries and their ratio compared. If the ratio was greater than 1.0, i.e. the amplitude of the second harmonic was greater than the amplitude of the first harmonic then the grid point was defined as having two wet seasons per year (biannual), if the ratio was less than one then it was defined as having an annual regime. Figure 1 shows the ratio for one African rainfall dataset (TARCATv2). Three regions are identified as biannual regions; the Horn of Africa, an equatorial strip extending from Gabon to Uganda and a small region on the southern West African coastline.
Figure 1: Location of regions with one and two seasons per year, determined using harmonic analysis. Yellow indicates two seasons per year, while pink/purple indicates one season per year. Computed from TARCATv2 data.

Secondly the period of the year when the wet season occurs was determined. This was achieved by looking for minima and maxima in the climatological cumulative daily rainfall anomaly to identify one or two seasons.
The third and final stage is to calculate the onset and cessation dates for each year. This is done by looking for the minima and maxima in the cumulative daily rainfall anomaly, calculated for each season.

Figure 2 shows the seasonal progression of the onset and cessation, with the patterns observed in agreement with those expected from the driving physical mechanisms, and continuous progression across the annual/biannual boundaries. Over West Africa and the Sahel, Figure 2a-b shows zonally-contiguous progression patterns with onset following the onset of the long rains and moving north, and cessation moving southward, preceding the end of the short rains. Over southern Africa Figure 2c-d shows the onset over southern Africa starting in the north-west and south-east, following the onset of the short rains, reaching the East African coast last, and cessation starting at the Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa border and spreading out radially into the cessation of the long rains.

As well as testing the method for compatibility with known physical drivers of African rainfall, agreement across multiple satellite-based rainfall estimates was also examined. In general, good agreement was found across the datasets, particularly for regions with an annual regime and over the biannual region of East Africa.

blog_fig2 — Figure 2: Southward and northward progression of the onset and cessation across the annual/biannual boundaries, computed using GPCP daily rainfall data 1998-2013.

The advantage of having a method that works at the continental scale is the ability to look at the impact of large-scale oscillations on wider-scale variability. One application of this method was to investigate the impact of El Niño upon both the annual rains and short rains (Figure 3). In Figure 3 we see the well-documented dipole in rainfall anomaly, with higher rainfall totals over 0–15°S and the Horn of Africa in El Niño years and the opposite between 15°S and 30°S. This anomaly is stronger when we use this method compared with using standard meteorological seasons. We can also see that while the lower rainfall to the south is colocated with later onset dates and a consequentially shorter season, the higher rainfall over the Horn of Africa is associated with later cessation of the short rains, with only small differences in onset date.

blog_fig3 — Figure 3: a-c) Composite of onset, cessation and wet season rainfall in El Niño years for annual rains and short rains, minus the mean over 1982-2013, computed using CHIRPS data d) Oct-Feb rainfall anomaly in years (CHIRPS).

In addition to using this method for research purposes, its application within an operational setting is also being explored. Hopefully, the method will be included within the Rainwatch platform, which will be able to provide users with a probabilistic estimate of whether or not the season has started, based on the rainfall experienced so far that year, and historical rainfall data.

For more details, please see the paper detailing this work:

Dunning, C.M., E Black, and R.P. Allan (2016) The onset and cessation of seasonal rainfall over Africa, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 121 11,405-11,424, doi: 10.1002/2016JD025428

References:

Liebmann, B., I. Bladé, G. N. Kiladis, L. M. Carvalho, G. B. Senay, D. Allured, S. Leroux, and C. Funk (2012), Seasonality of African precipitation from 1996 to 2009, J. Clim., 25(12), 4304–4322.

Stationary Orographic Rainbands

December 8, 2016Carly Wright1 Comment

Email: c.j.wright@pgr.reading.ac.uk

Small-scale rainbands often form downwind of mountainous terrain. Although relatively small in scale (a few tens of km across by up to ~100 km in length), these often poorly forecast bands can cause localised flooding as they can be associated with intense precipitation over several hours due to the anchoring effect of orography (Barrett et al., 2013). Figure 1 shows a flash flood caused by a rainband situated over Cockermouth in 2009. In some regions of southern France orographic banded convection can contribute 40% of the total rainfall (Cosma et al., 2002). Rainbands occur in various locations and under different synoptic regimes and environmental conditions making them difficult to examine their properties and determine their occurrence in a systematic way (Kirshbaum et al. 2007a,b, Fairman et al. 2016). My PhD considers the ability of current operational forecast models to represent these bands and the environmental controls on their formation.

blogfig1 — Figure 1: Flash flood event caused by a rainband situated over Cockermouth, Cumbria, UK in 2009

What is a rainband?

A cloud and precipitation structure associated with an area of rainfall which is significantly elongated
Stationary (situated over the same location) with continuous triggering
Can form in response to moist, unstable air following over complex terrain
Narrow in width ~2-10 km with varying length scales from 10 – 100’s km

To examine the ability of current operational forecast models to represent these bands a case study was chosen which was first introduced by Barrett, et al. (2016). The radar observations during the event showed a clear band along The Great Glen Fault, Scotland (Figure 3). However, Barrett, et al. (2016) concluded that neither the operational forecast or the operational ensemble forecast captured the nature of the rainband. For more information on ensemble models see one of our previous blog posts by David Flack Showers: How well can we predict them?.

Localised convergence and increased convective available potential energy along the fault supported the formation of the rainband. To determine the effect of model resolution on the model’s representation of the rainband, a forecast was performed with the horizontal gird spacing decreased to 500 m from 1.5 km. In this forecast a rainband formed in the correct location which generated precipitation accumulations close to those observed, but with a time displacement. The robustness of this forecast skill improvement is being assessed by performing an ensemble of these convection-permitting simulations. Results suggest that accurate representation of these mesoscale rainbands requires resolutions higher than those used operationally by national weather centres.

Idealised numerical simulations have been used to investigate the environmental conditions leading to the formation of these rainbands. The theoretical dependence of the partitioning of dry flow over and around mountains on the non-dimensional mountain height is well understood. For this project I examine the effect of this dependence on rainband formation in a moist environment. Preliminary analysis of the results show that the characteristics of rainbands are controlled by more than just the non-dimensional mountain height, even though this parameter is known to be sufficient to determine flow behaviour relative to mountains.

This work has been funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) under the project PREcipitation STructures over Orography (PRESTO), for more project information click here.

References

Barrett, A. I., S. L. Gray, D. J. Kirshbaum, N. M. Roberts, D. M. Schultz, and J. G. Fairman, 2015: Synoptic Versus Orographic Control on Stationary Convective Banding. Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 141, 1101–1113, doi:10.1002/qj.2409.

— 2016: The Utility of Convection-Permitting Ensembles for the Prediction of Stationary Convective Bands. Mon. Wea. Rev., 144, 10931114, doi:10.1175/MWR-D-15-0148.1.

Cosma, S., E. Richard, and F. Minsicloux, 2002: The Role of Small-Scale Orographic Features in the Spatial Distribution of Precipitation. Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 128, 75–92, doi:10.1256/00359000260498798.

Fairman, J. G., D. M. Schultz, D. J. Kirshbaum, S. L. Gray, and A. I. Barrett, 2016: Climatology of Banded Precipitation over the Contiguous United States. Mon. Wea. Rev., 144,4553–4568, doi: 10.1175/MWR-D-16-0015.1.

Kirshbaum, D. J., G. H. Bryan, R. Rotunno, and D. R. Durran, 2007a: The Triggering of Orographic Rainbands by Small-Scale Topography. J. Atmos. Sci., 64, 1530–1549, doi:10.1175/JAS3924.1.

Kirshbaum, D. J., R. Rotunno, and G. H. Bryan, 2007b: The Spacing of Orographic Rainbands Triggered by Small-Scale Topography. J. Atmos. Sci., 64, 4222–4245, doi:10.1175/2007JAS2335.1.

Showers: How well can we predict them?

November 24, 2016David Flack1 Comment

Email: d.l.a.flack@pgr.reading.ac.uk

Showers are one of the many examples of convective events experienced in the UK, other such events include thunderstorms, supercells and squall lines. These type of events form most often in the summer but can also form over the sea in the winter. They form because the atmosphere is unstable, i.e. warm air over a cooler surface, this results in the creation of thermals. If there is enough water vapour in the air and the thermal reaches high enough the water vapour will condense and eventually form a convective cloud. Convective events produce intense, often very localised, rainfall, which can result in flash floods, e.g. Boscastle 2004.

boscastle04 — Boscastle flood 2004 – BBC News

Flash floods are very difficult to predict, unlike flood events that happen from the autumnal and winter storms e.g. floods from Storms Desmond and Frank last winter, and the current floods (20-22 November). So often there is limited lead time for emergency services to react to flash flood events. One of the main reasons why flash floods are difficult to predict is the association with convective events because these events only last for a few hours (6 hours at the longest) and only affect a very small area.

One of the aspects of forecasting the weather that researchers look into is the predictability of certain events. My PhD considers the predictability of convective events within different situations in the UK.

The different situations I am considering are generally split into two regimes: convective quasi-equilibrium and non-equilibrium convection.

In convective quasi-equilibrium any production of instability in the atmosphere is balanced by its release (Arakawa and Schubert, 1974). This results in scattered showers, which could turn up anywhere in a region where there is large-scale ascent. This is typical of areas behind fronts and to the left of jet stream exit regions. Because there are no obvious triggers (like flow over mountains or cliffs) you can’t pin-point the exact location of a shower. We often find ourselves in this sort of situation in April, hence April showers.

On the other hand in non-equilibrium convection the instability is blocked from being released so energy in the system builds-up over time. If this inhibiting factor is overcome all the instability can be released at once and will result in ‘explosive’ convection (Emanuel, 1994). Overcoming the inhibiting factor usually takes place locally, such as a sea breeze or flow up mountains, etc. so these give distinct triggers and help tie the location of these events down. These are the type of situations that occur frequently over continents in the spring and often result in severe weather.

It’s useful having these regimes to categorise events to help determine what happens in the forecasts of different situations but only if we understand a little bit about their characteristics. For the initial part of my work I considered the regimes over the British Isles and found that we mainly have convective events in convective quasi-equilibrium (showers) – on average roughly 85% of convective events in the summer are in this regime (Flack et al., 2016). Therefore it is pertinent to ask how well can we predict showers?

To see how well we can predict showers, and other types of convection, the forecast itself is examined. This is done by adding small-scale variability into the model, throughout the forecast, to determine what would happen if the starting conditions (or any other time in the model) changed. This is run a number of times to create an ensemble.

Using ensembles we can determine the uncertainty in the weather forecast, this can either be in terms of spatial positioning, timing or intensity of the event. My work has mainly considered the spatial positioning and intensity of the convection, and is to be submitted shortly to Monthly Weather Review. The intensity in my ensemble shows similar variation in both regimes, suggesting that there are times when the amount of rainfall predicted can be spot on. Most of the interesting results appear to be linked to the location of the events. The ensembles for the non-equilibrium cases generally show agreement between location of the events, so we can be fairly confident about their location (so here your weather app would be very good). On the other hand, when it comes to showers there is no consistency between the different forecasts so they could occur anywhere (so when your app suggests showers be careful – you may or may not get one).

So I’ll answer my question that I originally posed with another question: What do you want from a forecast? If the answer to this question is “I want to know if there is a chance of rain at my location” then yes we can predict that you might get caught by a shower. If on the other hand your answer is “I want exact details, for my exact location, e.g. is there going to be a shower at 15:01 on Saturday at Stonehenge yes or no?” Then the answer is, although we are improving forecasts, we can’t give that accurate a forecast when it comes to scattered showers, simply because of their very nature.

With forecasts improving all the time and the fact that they are looking more realistic it does not mean that every detail of a forecast is perfect. As with forecasting in all areas (from politics to economy) things can take an unexpected turn so caution is advised. When it comes to the original question of showers then it’s always best to be prepared.

This work has been funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council under the project Flooding From Intense Rainfall, for more project details and project specific blogs visit: www.met.reading.ac.uk/flooding

References

Arakawa, A. and W. H. Schubert, 1974: Interaction of a Cumulus Cloud Ensemble with the Large-Scale Environment, Part I. J. Atmos. Sci., 31, 674-701.

Emanuel, K. A., 1994: Atmospheric convection, Oxford University Press, 580 pp.

Flack, D. L. A., R. S. Plant, S.L. Gray, H. W. Lean, C. Keil and G. C. Craig, 2016: Characterisation of Convective Regimes over the British Isles. Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 142, 1541-1553.

NERC Into the Blue – the Science We Live and Breathe

November 2, 2016David FlackLeave a comment

Email: d.l.a.flack@pgr.reading.ac.uk

One of the key aspects of science is communicating our work, not only to other scientists but also to the public. As part of the Manchester Science Festival the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) have been holding a number of events and last week (25 – 29 Oct) Into the Blue (a science showcase) was held at the Runway Visitor Centre underneath the wings of a Concorde. Along with a fellow PhD student from Reading (Kieran Hunt, who helped out on a stand about the monsoon) I was privileged to help man a stand (on flash flooding).

The event was used to showcase all the science that NERC funds from the atmosphere through to ecology. There were 40 exhibits and the chance to take tours of Concorde and the FAAM aircraft.

Concorde (left) and FAAM aircraft (right)

Exhibits involved a variety of interactive activities from making clouds in a bottle, using Infra-red cameras, making rivers in sand boxes, meeting Boaty McBoatface and a virtual reality flash flood!

During the quieter moments at their stands the exhibitors were allowed to wander around the rest of the event (including getting tours on the planes). In doing this we were able to talk to a number of different scientists about their work and engage in all the activities.

Personal highlights for me were touring both the Concorde and the FAAM aircraft. Although the best bit was the interaction with the public and being able to give everyone (no matter the age, from kids to adults) a “wow moment”.

The stand I was helping run was called FlashFlood! This stall was run predominantly by the University of Hull on behalf of the Flooding From Intense Rainfall (FFIR) project. They had created a virtual reality flash flood that was based on a real event (Thinhope Burn, 17 July 2007) which enabled us to place the stand’s visitor into a river valley and take them through the process of flooding from intense rainfall and how floods can change the characteristics of the rivers. It also gave us the ability (because of the case we had chosen) to show people that just because its not raining heavily at your location does not mean you won’t get flooded.

img_20161029_0915221

Having virtual reality was a massive draw for people to come to our stand so we were always fairly busy, but the feedback we had was very positive with the most frequent comments being,

“It felt like I was really there”
“It really helps me to visualise the science”
“Wow, this is really amazing”.

Comments like this really make events such as Into the Blue worth while for us as scientists as we then realise we are getting our messages through to people, and it shows the usefulness of scientific research to the public.

Events like this can be exhausting, but they are definitely worth the effort as you get to see the delight of the public as they learn about different science and have fun at the same time.

A big thank you must be said to NERC and Manchester Runway Visitor Centre for organizing and hosting the event and to all the exhibitors who did a great job in communicating science to the public.

The effect of local topography on severe tropical convective rainfall development.

September 26, 2016September 26, 2016Fadzil Mohd NorLeave a comment

Email: m.f.f.b.mohdnor@pgr.reading.ac.uk

The occurrence of severe convective rainfall is common over the tropical rainforest region. While the basic mechanism of the development of severe convective rainfall over the tropics is well understood in previous studies, the effect of local topography may yield a unique development process.

One part of my PhD project is to look at how local topography modifies severe rainfall events over the western Peninsular Malaysia. This was examined via a case study of severe rainfall that took place on 2^nd May 2012. On that day, heavy rainfall caused flash floods and landslides over Klang Valley (red box in Fig. 1). Although the total rainfall on the 2^nd May was above the Apr-May average, it was not extremely high.

fig1_geography_malaysia

Fig. 1. The study area, specifically over the western Peninsular Malaysia. The red box is Klang valley area.

Looking at observational data was not enough to understand the processes involved in the development of severe rainfall event on 2^nd May 2012 and therefore a simulation study was conducted using the UK Met Office Unified Model (1.5km horizontal resolution).

One theory which could explain the rainfall event on 2^nd May 2012 is the influence of a series of rainfall events that developed earlier. There were rainfall events over the Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra Island in the early evening of 1^st May 2012 along the Titiwangsa mountains (Peninsular Malaysia) and Barisan Mountains (Sumatra Island). These rainfall events influenced the development of rainfall over the Malacca Strait overnight. The rainfall event over the strait strengthened by the morning of 2^nd May. In the afternoon of 2^nd May, the western peninsula had the right atmospheric conditions to develop convective rainfall, and the rainfall over the strait influenced the intensification of rainfall over the western peninsula. Thus, we believe that the local topography has a large impact on the development of the 2^nd May rainfall event.

So, how do we test the hypothesis? One way is to perform sensitivity experiments. Four sensitivity experiments were conducted, modifying the orography of both the peninsula and Sumatra, and removing Sumatra altogether (Fig. 2).

fig2_experiments_all

Fig. 2. Sensitivity experiments on the local orography and Sumatra Island. Control run on the first panel, flatPM (flat peninsula to sea level), flatSI (flat Sumatra), flatALL(both peninsula and Sumatra are flat), and noSI (Sumatra is removed)

The results show that orography influenced and modified the development of late evening rainfall over both landmasses on both days. On 2^nd May, total rainfall in the experiments are as follows:
1. flatPM : Klang valley received less rainfall than control,
2. flatSI : Klang valley received less rainfall than control but more than flatPM,
3. flatALL : Klang valley received more rainfall than control, flatPM and flatSI experiments,
4. noSI : Klang valley received triple the amount of rainfall of the control and other experiments.
These results hint the complex relationship between local topography and rainfall. Moreover, both the peninsula and Sumatra are important for the development of the morning rainfall over the Malacca Strait, regardless of the orographic variability.

Whilst looking at one case study is not enough to draw a general conclusion, this will definitely be a step forward on broadening the information that we already have. A more robust conclusion would require further studies to be taken.

(This PhD project is supervised by Pete Inness and Christopher Holloway, and funded by MARA Malaysia).

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