Strong Dependence of Extreme Convective Precipitation Intensities on Gauge Network Density

Schroeer, Katharina; Kirchengast, Gottfried; Sungmin, O

doi:10.1029/2018gl077994

Cited by 58 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Multiple studies have shown that short-lived bursts are responsible for much of the runoff and erosion that takes place on agricultural, dryland, and other soils. Early studies of the importance of intensity peaks embedded within longer rainfalls include the work of Seginer et al (1962) in Israel. In a study of runoff and soil loss using rainfall simulation, they adopted a 4.5 h design storm that included an intense central 30 min period preceded and followed by lower intensity rain.…”

Section: What Evidence Points To the Significance Of Short-lived Intementioning

confidence: 99%

Rainfall intensity bursts and the erosion of soils: an analysis highlighting the need for high temporal resolution rainfall data for research under current and future climates

Dunkerley

2019

Earth Surf. Dynam.

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Abstract. Many land surface processes, including splash dislodgment and downslope transport of soil materials, are influenced strongly by short-lived peaks in rainfall intensity but are less well accounted for by longer-term average rates. Specifically, rainfall intensities reached over periods of 10–30 min appear to have more explanatory power than hourly or longer-period data. However, most analyses of rainfall, and particularly scenarios of possible future rainfall extremes under climate change, rely on hourly data. Using two Australian pluviograph records with 1 s resolution, one from an arid and one from a wet tropical climate, the nature of short-lived “intensity bursts” is analysed from the raw inter-tip times of the tipping bucket gauges. Hourly apparent rainfall intensities average just 1.43 mm h−1 at the wet tropical site and 2.12 mm h−1 at the arid site. At the wet tropical site, intensity bursts of extreme intensity occur frequently, those exceeding 30 mm h−1 occurring on average at intervals of <1 d and those of >60 mm h−1 occurring on average at intervals of <2 d. These bursts include falls of 13.2 mm in 4.4 min, the equivalent of 180 mm h−1, and 29 mm in 12.6 min, equivalent to 138 mm h−1. Intensity bursts at the arid site are much less frequent, those of 50–60 mm h−1 occurring at intervals of ∼1 month; moreover, the bursts have a much shorter duration. The aggregation of rainfall data to hourly level conceals the occurrence of many of these short-intensity bursts, which are potentially highly erosive. A short review examines some of the mechanisms through which intensity bursts affect infiltration, overland flow, and soil dislodgment. It is proposed that more attention to resolving these short-lived but important aspects of rainfall climatology is warranted, especially in light of possible changes in rainfall extremes under climate change.

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Section: What Evidence Points To the Significance Of Short-lived Intementioning

confidence: 99%

Rainfall intensity bursts and the erosion of soils: an analysis highlighting the need for high temporal resolution rainfall data for research under current and future climates

Dunkerley

2019

Earth Surf. Dynam.

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“…However, this traditional evaluation of precipitation has limitations for evaluating convective precipitation since the typical dimension of convective storms is smaller than the distance between stations. This can lead to an underestimation of storm frequency and storm peak intensity [5]. An evaluation of the space-time dynamics of convective cells requires the finer spatial and temporal resolution of remote sensing techniques.…”

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confidence: 99%

Convective Shower Characteristics Simulated with the Convection-Permitting Climate Model COSMO-CLM

2019

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This paper evaluates convective precipitation as simulated by the convection-permitting climate model (CPM) Consortium for Small-Scale Modeling in climate mode (COSMO-CLM) (with 2.8 km grid-spacing) over Germany in the period 2001-2015. Characteristics of simulated convective precipitation objects like lifetime, area, mean intensity, and total precipitation are compared to characteristics observed by weather radar. For this purpose, a tracking algorithm was applied to simulated and observed precipitation with 5-min temporal resolution. The total amount of convective precipitation is well simulated, with a small overestimation of 2%. However, the simulation underestimates convective activity, represented by the number of convective objects, by 33%. This underestimation is especially pronounced in the lowlands of Northern Germany, whereas the simulation matches observations well in the mountainous areas of Southern Germany. The underestimation of activity is compensated by an overestimation of the simulated lifetime of convective objects. The observed mean intensity, maximum intensity, and area of precipitation objects increase with their lifetime showing the spectrum of convective storms ranging from short-living single-cell storms to long-living organized convection like supercells or squall lines. The CPM is capable of reproducing the lifetime dependence of these characteristics but shows a weaker increase in mean intensity with lifetime resulting in an especially pronounced underestimation (up to 25%) of mean precipitation intensity of long-living, extreme events. This limitation of the CPM is not identifiable by classical evaluation techniques using rain gauges. The simulation can reproduce the general increase of the highest percentiles of cell area, total precipitation, and mean intensity with temperature but fails to reproduce the increase of lifetime. The scaling rates of mean intensity and total precipitation resemble observed rates only in parts of the temperature range. The results suggest that the evaluation of coarse-grained (e.g., hourly) precipitation fields is insufficient for revealing challenges in convection-permitting simulations.2 of 15 sets based on gauge data as observations. However, this traditional evaluation of precipitation has limitations for evaluating convective precipitation since the typical dimension of convective storms is smaller than the distance between stations. This can lead to an underestimation of storm frequency and storm peak intensity [5]. An evaluation of the space-time dynamics of convective cells requires the finer spatial and temporal resolution of remote sensing techniques. Since the temporal and spatial resolution of radar data is finer than the characteristic scales of convective clouds, it allows for continuous tracking of convective cells over their life cycle. Although mainly used for now-casting purposes, tracking of radar data to derive characteristics of convective cells on climatological time scales has been done in a few studies, for example, [6,7]. Preci...

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“…In addition, it is becoming increasingly clear that indices based on daily data will miss or mask some of the most intense events that could lead to flash flooding. This is particularly the case for convective extremes at point scale, found to be underestimated substantially by operational networks in a regional experiment (Schroeer et al 2018). While we have a limited knowledge of the processes that cause sub-daily extreme precipitation and its inherent intermittency…”

Section: Types Of Indicesmentioning

confidence: 97%

On the use of indices to study extreme precipitation on sub-daily and daily timescales

Alexander

Fowler

Bador

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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While there are obstacles to the exchange of long-term high temporal resolution precipitation data, there have been fewer barriers to the exchange of so-called 'indices'. These are derived from daily and sub-daily data and measure aspects of precipitation frequency, duration and intensity that could be used for the study of extremes. This paper outlines the history of the rationale and use of these indices, the types of indices that are frequently used and the advantages and pitfalls in analysing them. Moving forward, satellite precipitation products are now showing the potential to provide global climate indices to supplement existing products using longer-term in situ gauge records but we suggest that to advance this area differences between data products, limitations in satellite-based estimation processes, and the inherent challenges of scale need to be better understood.

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Strong Dependence of Extreme Convective Precipitation Intensities on Gauge Network Density

Cited by 58 publications

References 63 publications

Rainfall intensity bursts and the erosion of soils: an analysis highlighting the need for high temporal resolution rainfall data for research under current and future climates

Rainfall intensity bursts and the erosion of soils: an analysis highlighting the need for high temporal resolution rainfall data for research under current and future climates

Convective Shower Characteristics Simulated with the Convection-Permitting Climate Model COSMO-CLM

On the use of indices to study extreme precipitation on sub-daily and daily timescales

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