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Title: CalWater Field Studies Designed to Quantify the Roles of Atmospheric Rivers and Aerosols in Modulating U.S. West Coast Precipitation in a Changing Climate

Journal Article · · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [4];  [8];  [5];  [9];  [1];  [10];  [5]
  1. Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States). Scripps Inst. of Oceanography
  2. Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States). Scripps Inst. of Oceanography; US Geological Survey, La Jolla, CA (United States)
  3. Science and Technology Corp., Boulder, CO (United States); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab.
  4. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)
  5. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab.
  6. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  7. Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem (Israel)
  8. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL)
  9. Plymouth State Univ., NH (United States)
  10. Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA (United States). Scripps Inst. of Oceanography and San Diego Super Computer Center
+ Show Author Affiliations

The variability of precipitation and water supply along the U.S. West Coast creates major challenges to the region’s economy and environment, as evidenced by the recent California drought. This variability is strongly influenced by atmospheric rivers (AR), which deliver much of the precipitation along the U.S. West Coast and can cause flooding, and by aerosols (from local sources and transported from remote continents and oceans) that modulate clouds and precipitation. A better understanding of these processes is needed to reduce uncertainties in weather predictions and climate projections of droughts and floods, both now and under changing climate conditions.To address these gaps a group of meteorologists, hydrologists, climate scientists, atmospheric chemists, and oceanographers have created an interdisciplinary research effort, with support from multiple agencies. From 2009-2011 a series of field campaigns (CalWater 1) collected atmospheric chemistry, cloud microphysics and meteorological measurements in California and associated modeling and diagnostic studies were carried out. Based on remaining gaps, a vision was developed to extend these studies offshore over the Eastern North Pacific and to enhance land based measurements from 2014-2018 (CalWater 2). The data set and selected results from CalWater 1 are summarized here. The goals of CalWater-2, and measurements to date, are then described. Through this work, CalWater is producing new findings and exploring new technologies to evaluate and improve global climate models and their regional performance and to develop tools supporting water and hydropower management. These advances also have potential to enhance hazard mitigation by improving near-term weather prediction and subseasonal and seasonal outlooks.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; California Energy Commission (CEC); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); National Science Foundation (NSF); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1314413
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-113078; KP1703010
Journal Information:
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 97, Issue 7; ISSN 0003-0007
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 70 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (16)

Extreme winds and precipitation during landfall of atmospheric rivers journal February 2017
Topological data analysis and machine learning for recognizing atmospheric river patterns in large climate datasets journal January 2019
Synoptic conditions associated with cool season post-fire debris flows in the Transverse Ranges of southern California journal April 2017
Campaign datasets for ARM Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment (ACAPEX)
  • Leung, L.; Mei, Fan; Comstock, Jennifer
  • Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Archive, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (US); https://doi.org/10.5439/1346547
dataset January 2015
Background Free‐Tropospheric Ice Nucleating Particle Concentrations at Mixed‐Phase Cloud Conditions journal September 2018
Asian Long-Range Transport in Relation to Atmospheric Rivers in Northern California journal June 2019
The Potential for Discriminating Microphysical Processes in Numerical Weather Forecasts Using Airborne Polarimetric Radio Occultations journal September 2019
The Hydrometeorology Testbed–West Legacy Observing Network: Supporting Research to Applications for Atmospheric Rivers and Beyond journal September 2019
Comparative measurements of ambient atmospheric concentrations of ice nucleating particles using multiple immersion freezing methods and a continuous flow diffusion chamber journal January 2017
Transport of pollution to a remote coastal site during gap flow from California's interior: impacts on aerosol composition, clouds, and radiative balance journal January 2017
Effects of cloud condensation nuclei and ice nucleating particles on precipitation processes and supercooled liquid in mixed-phase orographic clouds journal January 2017
Classification of aerosol population type and cloud condensation nuclei properties in a coastal California littoral environment using an unsupervised cluster model journal January 2019
Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP): project goals and experimental design journal January 2018
Background Free‐Tropospheric Ice Nucleating Particle Concentrations at Mixed‐Phase Cloud Conditions text January 2018
Comparative measurements of ambient atmospheric concentrations of ice nucleating particles using multiple immersion freezing methods and a continuous flow diffusion chamber text January 2017
Background Free-Tropospheric Ice Nucleating Particle Concentrations at Mixed-Phase Cloud Conditions text January 2018

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