Probability of afternoon precipitation in eastern United States and Mexico enhanced by high evaporation

Findell, Kirsten L.; Gentine, Pierre; Lintner, Benjamin R.; Kerr, Christopher

doi:10.1038/ngeo1174

Cited by 216 publications

(279 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Counterintuitive effects of explicit entrainment can also introduce exotic behaviors [Hohenegger et al, 2009]. Thus, both positive and negative soil moisture feedback on precipitation can occur as shown in many studies [Hohenegger et al, 2009;Findell et al, 2011;Taylor et al, 2011Taylor et al, , 2012Gentine et al, 2013c;Guillod et al, 2015].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the atmospheric segment, we focus on an appealingly causative metric-a simplified version of the triggering feedback strength (TFS) and amplification feedback strength (AFS) [Findell et al, 2011[Findell et al, , 2015 to account for the coupling strength of precipitation to evaporative fraction (EF) on subdaily timescales.…”

Section: Triggering Feedback Strength and Amplification Feedback Strementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Findell et al [2011], the triggering probability and expectation values of afternoon rainfall amount are considered separately in bins constrained by EF, convective triggering potential (CTP), and low-level humidity deficit (HIlow) [Findell and Eltahir, 2003a] to isolate separate regimes. They also restrict the sampling days by two conditions in order to mitigate the impacts of large-scale synoptic systems: (i) days with morning (6 A.M.-noon) rainfall are excluded from the calculation to limit the impacts of long-duration synoptically controlled stratiform rainfall events; (ii) days with negative CTP are excluded as the condition is not favorable for local convection development.…”

Section: Triggering Feedback Strength and Amplification Feedback Strementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the large diversity of coupling signals in different global circulation models (GCMs), they tend to agree on several regions of strong coupling signals, initially identified in the Global Land-Atmosphere Coupling Experiment (GLACE) [Koster et al, 2004[Koster et al, , 2006, which has inspired a series of global land-atmosphere coupling studies in the past decade. These studies range in spatial and temporal scales and use a combination of models, reanalysis or satellite products [e.g., Dirmeyer, 2006Dirmeyer, , 2011Dirmeyer et al 2012;Findell et al, 2011;Taylor et al, 2012], with associated trade-offs. For instance, observational-based analyses are limited by an inability to explore the relationship of causality and short temporal and sparse spatial coverage, while reanalysis and models are impaired by their PBL and cloud parameterization schemes [Seneviratne et al, 2010;Ferguson et al, 2012;Guillod et al, 2015], though this can be mitigated to some degree by assimilating rainfall data [Findell et al, 2011].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of explicit convection on global land‐atmosphere coupling in the superparameterized CAM

Sun

Pritchard

2016

J Adv Model Earth Syst

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Conventional global climate models are prone to producing unrealistic land‐atmosphere coupling signals. Cumulus and convection parameterizations are natural culprits but the effect of bypassing them with explicitly resolved convection on global land‐atmosphere coupling dynamics has not been explored systematically. We apply a suite of modern land‐atmosphere coupling diagnostics to isolate the effect of cloud Superparameterization in the Community Atmosphere Model (SPCAM) v3.5, focusing on both the terrestrial segment (i.e., soil moisture and surface turbulent fluxes interaction) and atmospheric segment (i.e., surface turbulent fluxes and precipitation interaction) in the water pathway of the land‐atmosphere feedback loop. At daily timescales, SPCAM produces stronger uncoupled terrestrial signals (negative sign) over tropical rainforests in wet seasons, reduces the terrestrial coupling strength in the Central Great Plain in American, and reverses the coupling sign (from negative to positive) over India in the boreal summer season—all favorable improvements relative to reanalysis‐forced land modeling. Analysis of the triggering feedback strength (TFS) and amplification feedback strength (AFS) shows that SPCAM favorably reproduces the observed geographic patterns of these indices over North America, with the probability of afternoon precipitation enhanced by high evaporative fraction along the eastern United States and Mexico, while conventional CAM does not capture this signal. We introduce a new diagnostic called the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) Feedback Strength (PFS), which reveals that SPCAM exhibits a tight connection between the responses of the lifting condensation level, the PBL height, and the rainfall triggering to surface turbulent fluxes; a triggering disconnect is found in CAM.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Triggering Feedback Strength and Amplification Feedback Strementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Triggering Feedback Strength and Amplification Feedback Strementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Effects of explicit convection on global land‐atmosphere coupling in the superparameterized CAM

Sun

Pritchard

2016

J Adv Model Earth Syst

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“…Several studies describe that the occurrence of subsequent precipitation is linked to soil moisture (D'Odorico and Porporato, 2004) or evaporative fraction (Findell et al, 2011), but not subsequent precipitation amount. Alfieri et al, (2008), in contrast, detected a relatively weak feedback between soil moisture and the frequency of occurrence of precipitation that could both be positive or negative.…”

confidence: 99%

Diurnal equilibrium convection and land surface–atmosphere interactions in an idealized cloud‐resolving model

Schlemmer

Hohenegger

Schmidli

et al. 2012

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

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The influence of soil moisture and atmospheric stability on mid-latitude diurnal convection and land-atmosphere exchange is investigated in an idealized cloudresolving modelling framework using a full set of parametrization schemes. In each member of a series of month-long experiments, the model attains a state where deep, precipitating convection is triggered every day. This state is referred to as equilibrium diurnal convection. The triggering occurs via different mechanisms depending on the atmosphere-soil setting. In our framework latent heat fluxes comprise the primary control over the precipitation amounts. We find that evaporation is regulated by the availability of energy on the one hand and the availability of soil moisture and the near-surface saturation deficit of the atmosphere on the other. Increased cloud cover over wet soils reduces net short-wave radiation but increases net long-wave radiation, leading to a near-compensation of the two effects on available energy. Increased boundary layer moisture is removed by deep convection, thus increasing the near-surface saturation deficit and preventing a negative feedback of boundary layer moisture content on the latent heat fluxes. We also find that there is a spatial correlation between soil moisture and precipitation anomalies, suggesting that the soil moisture precipitation feedback acts on a scale of 10-50 km. Copyright c 2012 Royal Meteorological Society Key Words: convection; cloud-resolving modelling; land-surface atmosphere interactions

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A process‐based framework for quantifying the atmospheric preconditioning of surface‐triggered convection

Tawfik

Dirmeyer

2014

Geophysical Research Letters

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[1] Here we introduce the heated condensation framework, which contains a suite of variables for isolating the atmospheric boundary state from local surface forcing. The buoyant condensation level (BCL) and buoyant mixing temperature (θ BM ) quantify the degree to which the atmosphere is preconditioned for moist convection and can be calculated for any time of day or year using standard vertical profiles of temperature and humidity. Unlike the lifted condensation level and convective inhibition, the BCL is constructed through incremental mixing from the surface rather than lifting a hypothetical parcel. In this regard, the BCL represents a conserved condensation level diagnostic inherent to a given profile. The BCL and θ BM are shown to be applicable over a range of climate regimes and respond to synoptic and mesoscale forcings, illustrating its broader utility. A suite of variables relating the BCL directly to surface fluxes is also introduced. Citation: Tawfik, A. B., and P. A. Dirmeyer (2014), A process-based framework for quantifying the atmospheric preconditioning of surface-triggered convection,

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Probability of afternoon precipitation in eastern United States and Mexico enhanced by high evaporation

Cited by 216 publications

References 29 publications

Effects of explicit convection on global land‐atmosphere coupling in the superparameterized CAM

Effects of explicit convection on global land‐atmosphere coupling in the superparameterized CAM

Diurnal equilibrium convection and land surface–atmosphere interactions in an idealized cloud‐resolving model

A process‐based framework for quantifying the atmospheric preconditioning of surface‐triggered convection

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