A Proposed Algorithm for Moisture Fluxes from Atmospheric Rivers

Zhu, Yongxuan; Newell, Reginald E.

doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1998)126<0725:apafmf>2.0.co;2

Cited by 821 publications

(828 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The influence of the northern Atlantic atmospheric river is felt over an extended area. The pattern of precipitation in the western continental margin is, therefore, determined by the same phenomenon because the coastline is perpendicular to the predominant direction of flow of the atmospheric river (Newell et al, 1992;Zhu and Newell, 1998). In the boreal summer, when the advection of moisture from the Atlantic is weaker and the Hadley cell moves northwards, there is some evidence of a connection with both the Asian and African monsoons (Lionello et al, 2006).…”

Section: A Drumond Et Al: a Lagrangian Analysis Of The Variation Inmentioning

confidence: 96%

A Lagrangian analysis of the variation in moisture sources related to drier and wetter conditions in regions around the Mediterranean Basin

Drumond

Nieto

Hernández³

2011

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract.Here, we describe our use of the Lagrangian 3-D FLEXPART model to investigate the variation in sources of moisture related to the drier and wetter conditions of the different regions that surround the Mediterranean Basin. We carried out seasonal analyses for the period from March 2000 to February 2005, and identified those years with the highest and lowest rates of precipitation by season, averaged over eight different continental regions. The variation in specific humidity along the 10-day backward trajectories of the particles identified over the target areas was tracked for the selected period, and the characteristics of the moisture sources were then compared between wetter and drier conditions by season. Although they only represented a relatively short period, the results suggest that in most of the years chosen, the moisture sources were more extensive and/or more intense during wetter periods. The contribution of the north Atlantic as a source of moisture is apparent for the Iberian Peninsula, for France and for Central North Africa. Otherwise, the Mediterranean Sea is the predominant source for Eastern North Africa, and for the Italian and Balkan Peninsulas. Local sources provide moisture for the Eastern Mediterranean and Western North Africa.

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Section: A Drumond Et Al: a Lagrangian Analysis Of The Variation Inmentioning

confidence: 96%

A Lagrangian analysis of the variation in moisture sources related to drier and wetter conditions in regions around the Mediterranean Basin

Drumond

Nieto

Hernández³

2011

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Since the seminal work of Zhu and Newell [1998], the prevalence and role of ARs in the water cycle and in continental weather have become ever more clear, partly because of the advent of microwave remote sensing from polar-orbiting satellites, especially the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I), which provides frequent global measurements of IWV over the Earth's oceans, measurements that previously were available above only the relatively few sites where weather balloons and related instruments were deployed. The imager works very well over oceans and, since its spatiotemporal coverage became adequate in about 1998, has focused growing attention on ARs (see Figure 1a) in ways that previous water vapor data could not.…”

Section: Observations Of Atmospheric Riversmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overall, the need to understand ARs opens up a new set of grand challenges for water cycle, water supply, and flood prediction science. Zhu and Newell [1998] helped coin the term "atmospheric river" based on its narrow ness and importance to the water cycle. They found that at any given time, an average of more than 90% of the total poleward atmospheric water vapor transport through the middle latitudes is concentrated in four to five narrow regions that total less than 10% of the circumference of the Earth at that latitude.…”

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confidence: 99%

Storms, floods, and the science of atmospheric rivers

2011

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Imagine a stream of water thousands of kilometers long and as wide as the distance between New York City and Washington, D. C., flowing toward you at 30 miles per hour. No, this is not some hypothetical physics problem—it is a real river, carrying more water than 7–15 Mississippi Rivers combined. But it is not on land. It's a river of water vapor in the atmosphere. Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow corridors of water vapor transport in the lower atmosphere that traverse long swaths of the Earth's surface as they bind together the atmospheric water cycle (Figure 1). The characteristic (indeed defining) dimensions of these ARs are (1) integrated water vapor (IWV) concentrations such that if all the vapor in the atmospheric column were condensed into liquid water, the result would be a layer 2 or more centimeters thick; (2) wind speeds of greater than 12.5 meters per second in the lowest 2 kilometers; and (3) a shape that is long and narrow, no more than 400–500 kilometers wide, and extending for thousands of kilometers, sometimes across entire ocean basins.

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“…Many of the events in this study are atmospheric rivers (ARs), which are characterised by strong horizontal watervapour fluxes concentrated in a narrow band in the lower troposphere immediately ahead of the polar cold fronts. ARs are also associated with winter storms formed over the oceans at midlatitudes (Zhu and Newell, 1998;Ralph et al, 2004). They are readily identifiable in Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) satellite imagery as long, narrow plumes of enhanced integrated water vapour (Hollinger et al, 1990).…”

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confidence: 99%

Categorisation of northern California rainfall for periods with and without a radar brightband using stable isotopes and a novel automated precipitation collector

Coplen

Neiman²,

White³

et al. 2015

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

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A B S T R A C Tduring an AR with cold precipitating clouds and very high rainout with tops !6.5 km altitude. An altitude effect of (2.5 per 100 m was measured from BBY and CZD d 2 H VSMOW data and of (1.8 per 100 m for CZD and ATA d 2 H VSMOW data. We present a new approach to categorise rainfall intervals using d 2 H VSMOW values of precipitation and rainfall rates. We term this approach the algorithmic-isotopic categorisation of rainfall, and we were able to identify higher rainout and/or lower rainout periods during all events in this study. We conclude that algorithmic-isotopic categorisation of rainfall can enable users to distinguish between tropospheric vapour masses having relatively high rainout (typically with brightband rain and that commonly are ARs) and vapour masses having lower rainout (commonly with non-brightband rain).

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A Proposed Algorithm for Moisture Fluxes from Atmospheric Rivers

Cited by 821 publications

References 6 publications

A Lagrangian analysis of the variation in moisture sources related to drier and wetter conditions in regions around the Mediterranean Basin

A Lagrangian analysis of the variation in moisture sources related to drier and wetter conditions in regions around the Mediterranean Basin

Storms, floods, and the science of atmospheric rivers

Categorisation of northern California rainfall for periods with and without a radar brightband using stable isotopes and a novel automated precipitation collector

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