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.

Class—A Canadian land surface scheme for GCMS, II. Vegetation model and coupled runs

Abstract: In the companion to the present paper, the soil model associated with CLASS (Canadian Land Surface Scheme) was outlined. In this paper, the accompanying vegetation model is described. This model includes physically based treatment of energy and moisture fluxes from the canopy as well as radiation and precipitation cascades through it, and incorporates explicit thermal separation of the vegetation from the underlying ground. Seasonal variations of canopy parameters are accounted for. The morphological characteristics of the ‘composite canopy’ associated with each grid square are calculated as weighted averages over the vegetation types present. Each grid square is divided into a maximum of four separate subareas: bare soil, snow-covered, vegetation-covered, and snow-and-vegetation covered. Test runs were done in coupled mode with the Canadian Climate Centre GCM, to evaluate the performance of CLASS compared with that of the simpler land surface scheme previously used. Two versions of CLASS were run: one with ponded surface water saved between time steps, and one with it discarded. For the seasons of June—July—August and December—January—February, diagnostic calculations showed that the old scheme underestimated the globally averaged land surface screen temperature by as much as 3.0°C, and overestimated the globally averaged precipitation rate over land by up to 1.0 mm day−1. CLASS, on the other hand, produced screen temperature anomalies, varying in sign, of 0.2–0.3°C, and positive precipitation anomalies of 0.6–0.7 mm day−1. The relatively poor performance of the old model was attributed to its neglect of vegetation stomatal resistance, its assumption that the contents of the soil moisture ‘bucket’ had to be completely frozen before the surface temperature could fall below 0°C, and its use of the force-restore method for soil temperatures, which systematically neglects long-term thermal forcing from the soil substrate. The assumption made in most GCMs that excess surface water immediately becomes overland runoff is shown to result in substantial overestimates of surface screen temperatures in continental interiors.

Precipitation measurements and trends in the twentieth century

Abstract: Concern about anthropogenic climate change has heightened the need for accurate information about spatial and temporal variations in precipitation at the Earth’s surface. Large-scale precipitation estimates can be derived from either surface gauge measurements or by satellite remote sensing, both of which have shortcomings. Gauge measurements provide information about trends and variability of monthly precipitation throughout the entire twentieth century, but because of the lack of data from most ocean regions, this information is representative of only about 25–30% of the Earth’s surface. In contrast, satellite (especially multi-platform) measurements provide spatially complete coverage at monthly to subdaily resolution, but do not extend back beyond 1974. Merged gauge–satellite datasets maximize (and minimize) the relative benefits (and shortcomings) of each source type. While these merged products only extend back to 1979, their importance will grow as we move into the new century. Precipitation gauge data indicate that global land precipitation (excluding Antarctica) has increased by about 9 mm over the twentieth century (a trend of 0.89 mm/decade), which is relatively small compared with interannual and multi-decadal variability. Within this century-long trend, global precipitation exhibits considerable variability on decadal time-scales, with departures of up to 40 mm from the century mean of about 950 mm. Regionally, precipitation has increased over most land areas, with the exception of tropical North Africa, and parts of southern Africa, Amazonia and western South America. The dominant mode of interannual variability in global and

High-resolution climate change scenarios for India for the 21st century

Abstract: A state-of-art regional climate modelling system, known as PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies) developed by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, is applied for India to develop high-resolution climate change scenarios. The present-day simulation (1961-1990) with PRECIS is evaluated, including an examination of the impact of enhanced resolution and an identification of biases. The RCM is able to resolve features on finer scales than those resolved by the GCM, particularly those related to improved resolution of the topography. The most notable advantage of using the RCM is a more realistic representation of the spatial patterns of summer monsoon rainfall such as the maximum along the windward side of the Western Ghats. There are notable quantitative biases in precipitation over some regions, mainly due to similar biases in the driving GCM. PRECIS simulations under scenarios of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and sulphate aerosols indicate marked increase in both rainfall and temperature towards the end of the 21st century. Surface air temperature and rainfall show similar patterns of projected changes under A2 and B2 scenarios, but the B2 scenario shows slightly lower magnitudes of the projected change. The warming is monotonously widespread over the country, but there are substantial spatial differences in the projected rainfall changes. West central India shows maximum expected increase in rainfall. Extremes in maximum and minimum temperatures are also expected to increase into the future, but the night temperatures are increasing faster than the day temperatures. Extreme precipitation shows substantial increases over a large area, and particularly over the west coast of India and west central India.

A 44-Year Daily Gridded Precipitation Dataset for Asia Based on a Dense Network of Rain Gauges

Abstract: A daily gridded precipitation dataset for 1961-2004 was created by collecting rain gauge observation data across Asia through the activities of the Asian Precipitation—Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards the Evaluation of Water Resources (APHRODITE) project. Our number of valid stations was between 5000 and 12,000, representing 2.3 to 4.5 times the data available through the Global Telecommunication System network, which were used for most daily grid precipitation products. APHRODITE’s daily gridded precipitation (APHRO_V0902) is the only long-term (1961 onward) continental-scale daily product that contains a dense network of daily rain gauge data for Asia including the Himalayas and mountainous areas in the Middle East. The product contributes to studies such as the evaluation of Asian water resources, diagnosis of climate change, statistical downscaling, and verification of numerical model simulation and high-resolution precipitation estimates using satellites. We released APHRO_V0902 datasets for Monsoon Asia, Russia and the Middle East (on 0.5° × 0.5° and 0.25° × 0.25° grids) at http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/precip/. Herein, we show the algorithm and input data of APHRO_V0902.