Mesoscale Associations Between Midwest Land Surface Properties and Convective Cloud Development in the Warm Season

Allard, Jason; Carleton, Andrew M.

doi:10.2747/0272-3646.31.2.107

Cited by 16 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…Lu et al (2001), Tsvetsinskaya et al (2001b), and Kim and Wang (2007) agree that the land surface influence on sensible and latent heat fluxes and climate increases when local to regional atmospheric processes dominate over global phenomena. In midwestern North America this is true in summer when the jet stream weakens and local convective processes dominate over the large-scale circulation (Allard and Carleton 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interactive Crop Management in the Community Earth System Model (CESM1): Seasonal Influences on Land–Atmosphere Fluxes

et al. 2012

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The Community Earth System Model, version 1 (CESM1) is evaluated with two coupled atmosphere-land simulations. The CTRL (control) simulation represents crops as unmanaged grasses, while CROP represents a crop managed simulation that includes special algorithms for midlatitude corn, soybean, and cereal phenology and carbon allocation. CROP has a more realistic leaf area index (LAI) for crops than CTRL. CROP reduces winter LAI and represents the spring planting and fall harvest explicitly. At the peak of the growing season, CROP simulates higher crop LAI. These changes generally reduce the latent heat flux but not around peak LAI (late spring/early summer). In midwestern North America, where corn, soybean, and cereal abundance is high, simulated peak summer precipitation declines and agrees better with observations, particularly when crops emerge late as is found from a late planting sensitivity simulation (LateP). Differences between the CROP and LateP simulations underscore the importance of simulating crop planting and harvest dates correctly. On the biogeochemistry side, the annual cycle of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) also improves in CROP relative to Ameriflux site observations. For a global perspective, the authors diagnose annual cycles of CO 2 from the simulated NEE (CO 2 is not prognostic in these simulations) and compare against representative GLOBALVIEW monitoring stations. The authors find an increased (thus also improved) amplitude of the annual cycle in CROP. These regional and global-scale refinements from improvements in the simulated plant phenology have promising implications for the development of the CESM and particularly for simulations with prognostic atmospheric CO 2 .

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interactive Crop Management in the Community Earth System Model (CESM1): Seasonal Influences on Land–Atmosphere Fluxes

et al. 2012

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“…Similar in concept to the dynamics of classical mesoscale circulations like land-sea breezes, NCMCs may form at the boundary between two land types with different radiative and/or roughness characteristics, such as cropland and forest (Segal et al 1988;Carleton et al 2001;Weaver 2004;Allard and Carleton 2010). The horizontal gradients of temperature and moisture between irrigated and nonirrigated regions may induce ascent and moisture convergence on the nonirrigated, warmer side (see Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, LULCC likely does not have as much of an effect on precipitation frequency compared with precipitation intensity since 1) the increase in net radiation, and therefore in MSE, is less prominent than the repartitioning of heat fluxes and consequent increase in water vapor and 2) nonlocal (synoptic and mesoscale) forcings likely determine the periods during which convective precipitation is most favorable (Allard and Carleton 2010;Huber et al 2014). On the other hand, the added moisture in the PBL, potentially altered wind patterns, and thus increased moisture convergence downwind would very likely enhance precipitation intensity.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observational Evidence that Great Plains Irrigation Has Enhanced Summer Precipitation Intensity and Totals in the Midwestern United States

Alter

Fan

Lintner

et al. 2015

Journal of Hydrometeorology

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Significant increases in summer precipitation have occurred in the midwestern United States over the last century for reasons that remain unclear. It is postulated that the expansion of irrigation and cropland in the central United States over the past 60 yr has been a major contributor to these observed increases in precipitation. As a first step toward attribution of these precipitation changes, a detailed analysis of observed daily summer precipitation frequency and intensity is conducted for the contiguous United States over

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“…This is in contrast to the increased probability of precipitation over wet soils that is shown in general circulation models (GCMs). The spatial resolution of these GCMs has a major impact on their ability to accurately simulate these interactions [ Taylor et al ., ] because cloud cover and precipitation responses to surface flux anomalies are on the order of tens of kilometers [ Weaver and Avissar , ; Allard and Carleton , ; Taylor et al ., ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synoptic conditions related to soil moisture‐atmosphere interactions and unorganized convection in Oklahoma

et al. 2015

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Atmospheric modification by anomalously dry or wet soils can both enhance and suppress convective activity. However, the local‐scale and mesoscale feedback governing soil moisture‐precipitation coupling are embedded within the larger synoptic‐scale environment. Despite their importance, synoptic‐scale atmospheric conditions are rarely considered in studies examining soil moisture‐atmosphere interactions. We combine self‐organizing maps of 500 hPa geopotential height, spatial synoptic classification, and Hybrid Single‐Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model air mass trajectories to determine if the synoptic‐scale environment affects the ability of the land surface to force unorganized convection in Oklahoma. We identify several synoptic patterns that significantly impact the frequency of unorganized convection. Synoptic patterns characterized by midlevel troughs over the Southern Great Plains are less frequently associated with unorganized convective events. These patterns exhibit cool air advection in the midlevel and lower level of the atmosphere and are linked to suppression of convective activity. The synoptic patterns characterized by 500 hPa ridging over the study region are more frequently associated with unorganized convective events. These patterns likely result in increased net radiation, vapor pressure deficit, and more homogenously dry soils. Unorganized convective events that occur during these synoptic conditions initiate preferentially over dry soils. We present evidence that the synoptic‐scale environment can influence whether and how the land surface has an impact on convection.

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Mesoscale Associations Between Midwest Land Surface Properties and Convective Cloud Development in the Warm Season

Cited by 16 publications

References 99 publications

Interactive Crop Management in the Community Earth System Model (CESM1): Seasonal Influences on Land–Atmosphere Fluxes

Interactive Crop Management in the Community Earth System Model (CESM1): Seasonal Influences on Land–Atmosphere Fluxes

Observational Evidence that Great Plains Irrigation Has Enhanced Summer Precipitation Intensity and Totals in the Midwestern United States

Synoptic conditions related to soil moisture‐atmosphere interactions and unorganized convection in Oklahoma

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