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Precipitation

About: Precipitation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 32861 publications have been published within this topic receiving 990496 citations. The topic is also known as: rain & rainfall.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, space and time autocorrelation functions are defined for the precipitation process on a horizontal plane. And an optical device is designed and used to measure these functions as well as the mean, the mean square, and the variance of the rainfall rate for a time sequence of precipitation patterns of a widespread convective storm.
Abstract: Space and time autocorrelation functions are defined for the precipitation process on a horizontal plane. An optical device was designed and used to measure these functions as well as the mean, the mean square, and the variance of the rainfall rate for a time sequence of precipitation patterns of a widespread convective storm. The input data were radar PPI records stored on film in which the transmittance was adjusted to be proportional to rainfall rate.

261 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the changes of heavy precipitation in the United States during the 2000-2099 period using a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model ECHAM4/OPYC3.
Abstract: Secular trends of daily precipitation characteristics are considered in the transient climate change experiment with a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model ECHAM4/OPYC3 for 1900-2099. The climate forcing is due to increasing concentrations of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Mean daily precipitation, precipitation intensity, probability of wet days and parameters of the gamma distribution are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the changes of heavy precipitation, Analysis of the annual mean precipitation trends for 1900-1999 revealed general agreement with observations with significant positive trends in mean precipitation over continental areas. In the 2000-2099 period precipitation trend patterns followed the tendency obtained for 1900-1999 but with significantly increased magnitudes. Unlike the annual mean precipitation trends for which negative values were found for some continental areas, the mean precipitation intensity and scale parameter of the fitted gamma distribution increased over all land territories . Negative trends in the number of wet days were found over most of the land areas except high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. The shape parameter of the gamma distribution in general revealed a slight negative trend in the areas of the precipitation increase. Investigation of daily precipitation revealed an unproportional increase of heavy precipitation events for the land areas including local maxima in Europe and the eastern United States.

260 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used satellite-derived data sets of active fire detections, burned area, precipitation, and fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR) during 1998-2006 to investigate the interaction between climate, human activities, and ecosystem processes.
Abstract: In the tropics and subtropics, most fires are set by humans for a wide range of purposes. The total amount of burned area and fire emissions reflects a complex interaction between climate, human activities, and ecosystem processes. Here we used satellite-derived data sets of active fire detections, burned area, precipitation, and the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR) during 1998–2006 to investigate this interaction. The total number of active fire detections and burned area was highest in areas that had intermediate levels of both net primary production (NPP; 500–1000 g C m−2 year−1) and precipitation (1000–2000 mm year−1), with limits imposed by the length of the fire season in wetter ecosystems and by fuel availability in drier ecosystems. For wet tropical forest ecosystems we developed a metric called the fire-driven deforestation potential (FDP) that integrated information about the length and intensity of the dry season. FDP partly explained the spatial and interannual pattern of fire-driven deforestation across tropical forest regions. This climate-fire link in combination with higher precipitation rates in the interior of the Amazon suggests that a negative feedback on fire-driven deforestation may exist as the deforestation front moves inward. In Africa, compared to the Amazon, a smaller fraction of the tropical forest area had FDP values sufficiently low to prevent fire use. Tropical forests in mainland Asia were highly vulnerable to fire, whereas forest areas in equatorial Asia had, on average, the lowest FDP values. FDP and active fire detections substantially increased in forests of equatorial Asia, however, during El Nino periods. In contrast to these wet ecosystems we found a positive relationship between precipitation, fAPAR, NPP, and active fire detections in arid ecosystems. This relationship was strongest in northern Australia and arid regions in Africa. Highest levels of fire activity were observed in savanna ecosystems that were limited neither by fuel nor by the length of the fire season. However, relations between annual precipitation or drought extent and active fire detections were often poor here, hinting at the important role of other factors, including land managers, in controlling spatial and temporal variability of fire.

260 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a 14-year soil moisture data set from the state of Illinois was analyzed and the linear correlation between an initial soil saturation condition and subsequent rainfall was found to be significant during the summer months, reaching a peak of r2 > 0.4 in mid-June.
Abstract: Many global and regional climate modeling studies have demonstrated the importance of the initial soil water condition in their simulations of regional rainfall distribution. However, none of these modeling studies has been tested against directly observed data. This study tests the hypothesis that soil saturation is positively correlated with subsequent precipitation by analyzing a 14-year soil moisture data set from the state of Illinois. The linear correlation between an initial soil saturation condition and subsequent rainfall is significant during the summer months, reaching a peak of r2 > 0.4 in mid-June. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that knowledge of late spring/early summer soil moisture conditions can aid in the prediction of drought or flood years, but it does not necessarily prove that feedback from anomalous soil moisture reservoirs is the cause of anomalous summer conditions. Further analyses indicate that from early June to mid-August, persistence in rainfall cannot fully account for the observed correlations, suggesting the likelihood of a physical feedback mechanism linking early summer soil saturation with subsequent precipitation. However, spatial and temporal data limitations restrict the potential for drawing strong new conclusions from the Illinois study.

260 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: The Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) has established a semi-automatic data processing system to obtain monthly precipitation analyses as mentioned in this paper, which includes components for the collection, storage and quality control of all available gauge-measured data.
Abstract: The Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) has established a semi-automatic data processing system to obtain monthly precipitation analyses. This includes components for the collection, storage arui quality-control of all available gauge-measured data. The calculation of areal mean precipitation on a 2.5o grid by using an objective analysis method and the merging of these analyses with results from other sources to get complete global gridded data sets are a part of the routine system as well.

260 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20237,839
202214,365
20212,302
20201,964
20191,942
20181,773