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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
01 May 2003-Ecology
TL;DR: Meinzer et al. as discussed by the authors showed that the response of tropical forest carbon balance to global change is highly dependent on the factors limiting net primary productivity (NPP) in this biome.
Abstract: The response of tropical forest carbon balance to global change is highly dependent on the factors limiting net primary productivity (NPP) in this biome. Current empirical global NPP–climate relationships predict that the response of NPP to climate diminishes at higher levels of mean annual precipitation (MAP) and mean annual temperature (MAT), but data have been relatively scarce in warm and wet tropical ecosystems. By integrating data from a new comprehensive global survey of NPP from tropical forests and a climate gradient from Maui, Hawaii, along with data previously used to develop NPP–climate relationships, I show that there is a strong negative relationship between MAP and NPP in humid ecosystems. The relationships derived here clearly demonstrate that NPP in wet tropical forests is sensitive to climate, and that future forest growth may be limited by increased precipitation forecast by global climate models for the wet tropics. Corresponding Editor: F. C. Meinzer.

301 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
05 Sep 2003-Science
TL;DR: Oxygen-isotope ratios of a stalagmite from Socotra Island in the Indian Ocean provide a record of changes in monsoon precipitation and climate for the time period from 42 to 55 thousand years before the present, with increased tropical precipitation associated with warm periods in the high northern latitudes.
Abstract: Oxygen-isotope ratios of a stalagmite from Socotra Island in the Indian Ocean provide a record of changes in monsoon precipitation and climate for the time period from 42 to 55 thousand years before the present. The pattern of precipitation bears a striking resemblance to the oxygen-isotope record from Greenland ice cores, with increased tropical precipitation associated with warm periods in the high northern latitudes. The largest change, at the onset of interstadial 12, occurred very rapidly, in about 25 years. The chronology of the events found in our record requires a reevaluation of previously published time scales for climate events during this period.

301 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the spatial and temporal distribution of seasonal snow depth derived from passive microwave satellite remote-sensing data (e.g. SMMR from 1978 to 1987 and SMM/I from 1987 to 2006) in China is reported.
Abstract: In this study, we report on the spatial and temporal distribution of seasonal snow depth derived from passive microwave satellite remote-sensing data (e.g. SMMR from 1978 to 1987 and SMM/I from 1987 to 2006) in China. We first modified the Chang algorithm and then validated it using meteorological observation data, considering the influences from vegetation, wet snow, precipitation, cold desert and frozen ground. Furthermore, the modified algorithm is dynamically adjusted based on the seasonal variation of grain size and snow density. Snow-depth distribution is indirectly validated by MODIS snow-cover products by comparing the snow-extent area from this work. The final snow-depth datasets from 1978 to 2006 show that the interannual snow-depth variation is very significant. The spatial and temporal distribution of snow depth is illustrated and discussed, including the steady snow- cover regions in China and snow-mass trend in these regions. Though the areal extent of seasonal snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere indicates a weak decrease over a long period, there is no clear trend in change of snow-cover area extent in China. However, snow mass over the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and northwestern China has increased, while it has weakly decreased in northeastern China. Overall, snow depth in China during the past three decades shows significant interannual variation, with a weak increasing trend.

300 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the first global, multiannual soil moisture data set (1992-2000) has been derived from active microwave data acquired by the European Remote Sensing Satellites (ERS) ERS-1/ERS-2 scatterometer (C-band) and the retrieval algorithm is based on a change detection approach that naturally accounts for surface roughness and heterogeneous land cover.
Abstract: [1] The lack of global soil moisture data has spurred research in the field of microwave remote sensing. Both passive (radiometers) and active (scatterometer) microwave data are very sensitive to the moisture content of the surface soil layer. To retrieve soil moisture, the effects of vegetation, surface roughness, and heterogeneous land cover must be taken into account. Field experiments have shown that passive microwave data at long wavelengths (L-band) are best suited for soil moisture retrieval. Nevertheless, the first global, multiannual soil moisture data set (1992–2000) has been derived from active microwave data acquired by the European Remote Sensing Satellites (ERS) ERS-1 and ERS-2 scatterometer (C-band). The retrieval algorithm is based on a change detection approach that naturally accounts for surface roughness and heterogeneous land cover. In this paper the scatterometer-derived soil moisture data are compared to gridded precipitation data and soil moisture modeled by a global vegetation and water balance model. The correlation between soil moisture and rainfall anomalies is observed to be best over areas with a dense rainfall gauge network. Also, the scatterometer-derived and modeled soil moisture agree reasonably well over tropical and temperate climates. The fact that the algorithm performs equally well for regions with summer rain and Mediterranean areas indicates that dynamic vegetation effects are correctly represented in the retrieval. More research is needed to better understand the backscattering behavior over dry (steppe, deserts) and cold (boreal zone, tundra) climatic regions. The scatterometer-derived soil moisture data are available to other research groups at http://www.ipf.tuwien.ac.at/radar/ers-scat/home.htm.

300 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the recent and future climate evolution in the Mediterranean region is analyzed in relation to annual mean global surface temperature change, and it is shown that Mediterranean regional and global temperatures have warmed at a similar rate until the 1980s and decadal variability determines a large uncertainty that prevents to identify long-term links between precipitation in Mediterranean region and global temperature.
Abstract: The recent (twentieth century) and future (twenty-first century) climate evolution in the Mediterranean region is analyzed in relation to annual mean global surface temperature change. The CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5) simulations, the CRU (Climate Research Unit) observational gridded dataset, and two twentieth century reanalyzes (ECMWF, European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasts) and NOAA ESRL (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Earth System Research Laboratory) are used. These datasets to large extent agree that in the twentieth century: (a) Mediterranean regional and global temperatures have warmed at a similar rate until the 1980s and (b) decadal variability determines a large uncertainty that prevents to identify long-term links between precipitation in the Mediterranean region and global temperature. However, in the twenty-first century, as mean global temperature increases, in the Mediterranean region, precipitation will decrease at a rate around − 20 mm/K or − 4%/K and temperature will warm 20% more than the global average. Warming will be particularly large in summer (approximately 50% larger than global warming) and for the land areas located north of the basin (locally up to 100% larger than global warming). Reduction of precipitation will affect all seasons in the central and southern Mediterranean areas, with maximum reduction for winter precipitation (− 7 mm/K or − 7%/K for the southern Mediterranean region). For areas along the northern border of the Mediterranean region, reduction will be largest in summer (− 7 mm/K or − 9%/K for the whole northern Mediterranean region), while they will not experience a significant reduction of precipitation in winter.

300 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