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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 paper, an ensemble of regional climate models for Europe is used, all driven with the same transient boundary conditions, to assess all possible bias non-stationarities, conclusions can be drawn for the real world.
Abstract: Bias correcting climate models implicitly assumes stationarity of the correction function. This assumption is assessed for regional climate models in a pseudo reality for seasonal mean temperature and precipitation sums. An ensemble of regional climate models for Europe is used, all driven with the same transient boundary conditions. Although this model-dependent approach does not assess all possible bias non-stationarities, conclusions can be drawn for the real world. Generally, biases are relatively stable, and bias correction on average improves climate scenarios. For winter temperature, bias changes occur in the Alps and ice covered oceans caused by a biased forcing sensitivity of surface albedo; for summer temperature, bias changes occur due to a biased sensitivity of cloud cover and soil moisture. Precipitation correction is generally successful, but affected by internal variability in arid climates. As model sensitivities vary considerably in some regions, multi model ensembles are needed even after bias correction. Key Points: - Bias correction in general improves future climate simulations - Cloud cover, soil moisture and albedo changes may cause temperature bias changes - Precipitation biases in arid regions are affected by internal variability

219 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of horizontal resolution and the treatment of convection on simulation of the diurnal cycle of precipitation during boreal summer are analyzed in several innovative weather and climate model integrations.
Abstract: The effects of horizontal resolution and the treatment of convection on simulation of the diurnal cycle of precipitation during boreal summer are analyzed in several innovative weather and climate model integrations. The simulations include: season-long integrations of the Non-hydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) with explicit clouds and convection; year-long integrations of the operational Integrated Forecast System (IFS) from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts at three resolutions (125, 39 and 16 km); seasonal simulations of the same model at 10 km resolution; and seasonal simulations of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) low-resolution climate model with and without an embedded two-dimensional cloud-resolving model in each grid box. NICAM with explicit convection simulates best the phase of the diurnal cycle, as well as many regional features such as rainfall triggered by advancing sea breezes or high topography. However, NICAM greatly overestimates mean rainfall and the magnitude of the diurnal cycle. Introduction of an embedded cloud model within the NCAR model significantly improves global statistics of the seasonal mean and diurnal cycle of rainfall, as well as many regional features. However, errors often remain larger than for the other higher-resolution models. Increasing resolution alone has little impact on the timing of daily rainfall in IFS with parameterized convection, yet the amplitude of the diurnal cycle does improve along with the representation of mean rainfall. Variations during the day in atmospheric prognostic fields appear quite similar among models, suggesting that the distinctive treatments of model physics account for the differences in representing the diurnal cycle of precipitation.

219 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the bulk depositional fluxes of 210Pb and 7Be were measured at a coastal (Galveston) and an inland (College Station) station for about 3 years, between 1989 and 1991.
Abstract: The bulk depositional fluxes of 210Pb and 7Be were measured at a coastal (Galveston) and an inland (College Station) station for about 3 years, between 1989 and 1991. The annual depositional fluxes of 7Be and 210Pb at Galveston during this period varied by a factor of about 2.5, between 8.9 and 23.2 disintegrations per minute (dpm) cm−2 yr−1, with a mean of 14.7 dpm cm−2 yr−1 for 7Be, and 0.67 and 1.71 dpm cm−2 yr−1, with a mean of 1.03 dpm cm−2 yr−1 for 210Pb, respectively. The precipitation-normalized 7Be flux increases with increasing amount of precipitation. There is no systematic and consistent seasonal trend in the depositional fluxes for 7Be or for 210Pb. The volume-weighted 210Pb concentrations, when normalized to the amount of precipitation, seem to be constant over the time period of this study. Four to six heavy rain events (> 5 cm) in a single day account for 20–30% of the annual deposition of 7Be and 210Pb. Such events account, however, for only about 4–6% of the total number of rainy days in a year. The dry depositional fluxes of these nuclides appear to be a significant fraction of the bulk depositional flux only during the months when there is very little rain. The fraction of dry to total depositional flux of 210Pb appears to be higher than that of 7Be. The strong positive correlation between 7Be and 210Pb depositional fluxes indicates that the flux of both nuclides is controlled by scavenging processes by local precipitation. This correlation also indicates that a major portion of the air masses that brings precipitation to Galveston and College Station is of continental origin. Our data therefore suggest that 7Be and 210Pb cannot be used as independent atmospheric tracers in our coastal station. This observation is consistent with those observed at many other continental and coastal stations.

219 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a meteorological mesoscale model (BOLAM) was used to simulate and test the intensity and timing of the most intense rain over Piedmont in northwestern Italy.
Abstract: The intense precipitation event that occurred between 3 and 6 November 1994 and caused extensive flooding over Piedmont in northwestern Italy is simulated and tested with respect to various physical aspects, using a meteorological mesoscale model (BOLAM). The period when the most intense rain occurred, mainly covering the second half of 4 and all of 5 November, is examined. A control experiment, starting at 1200 UTC 4 November, simulates the two observed precipitation peaks and captures the magnitude and timing of the most intense precipitation well even at relatively low horizontal resolution (about 30 km). The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts analyses are used to provide the initial and boundary conditions. Model output diagnostics and comparison with observations indicate that most of the precipitation is associated with a prefrontal low-level jet, ahead of the cold front, impinging upon the orography of the region (Alps and Apennines). The model simulates a multiple rainband...

219 citations

01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented projections of changes in seasonal surface air temperature and precipitation for three 30-year periods during the 21st century in 32 sub-continental scale regions.
Abstract: Projections of changes in seasonal surface air temperature and precipitation for three 30-year periods during the 21st century in 32 sub-continental scale regions are presented. This information may offer useful guidance on the selection of climate scenarios for regional impact studies. The climate changes have been simulated by seven coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs), the greenhouse gas and aerosol forcing being inferred from the SRES emission scenarios A1FI, A2, B1 and B2. For a majority of the AOGCMs, simulations have only been conducted for scenarios A2 and B2. Projections for other scenarios were then extrapolated from the available runs applying a pattern-scaling technique. In tests, this method proved to be fairly accurate, the correlation between the AOGCMsimulated and the corresponding pattern-scaled response to A2 scenario for the end of the 21th century being generally ∼ 0.97− 0.99 for temperature and ∼ 0.9 or higher for precipitation. Projected changes of temperature and precipitation are presented in the form of 384 scatter diagrams. The model-simulated temperature changes were almost invariably statistically significant, i.e., they fell clearly outside the natural multi-decadal variability derived from 1000-year unforced coupled AOGCM simulations. For precipitation, fewer modelled changes were statistically significant, especially in the earliest projection period 2010-2039. Differences in the projections given by various models were substantial, of the same order of magnitude by the end of the century as differences among the responses to separate forcing scenarios. Nevertheless, the surface air temperature increased in all regions and seasons. For precipitation, changes with both sign occurred, but an increase of regional precipitation was more common than a decrease. All models simulate higher precipitation at high latitudes and enhanced summer monsoon precipitation for Southern and Eastern Asia. There was agreement between models that precipitation declines in Australia, Southern Africa and the Mediterranean region in certain seasons. The results presented on the scatter diagrams are also available in numerical form from the IPCC Data Distribution Centre.

219 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