Mesoscale Convective Systems Simulated by a High–Resolution Global Nonhydrostatic Model Over the United States and China
Abstract
Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) contribute a large fraction of warm-season precipitation and generate hazardous weather with substantial socio-economic impacts. Uncertainties in convection parameterizations in climate models limit our understanding of MCS characteristics and reliability of future projection. We examine the MCS simulation from the global 14-km Nonhydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) without cumulus parameterization against satellite observation from Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) during 2001-2008. We focus on MCSs over the central U.S. and eastern China where MCSs prevail from March to August. A process-oriented tracking method incorporating both cloud and precipitation criteria is used to identify and track MCSs. About 140/100 MCSs initiate in the central U.S./eastern China per warm season and most of them initiate east of high mountains and in coastal regions. The frequency distribution of MCS lifetime is well captured in NICAM. But the simulated MCSs have stronger precipitation, smaller precipitation area, and larger cold cloud system than observed in both regions, which may be caused by weak entrainment as it is not well resolved at 14 km resolution. Here, the simulated MCS number is also underestimated in summer. By examining the climatological and MCS large-scale environments, the significant underestimation of MCS number in summer over themore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[4];
[5]
- Beijing Municipal Climate Center (China)
- Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Japan Agency for Marine‐Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama (Japan)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China); Univ. of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); JSPS KAKENHI
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1897516
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-166872
Journal ID: ISSN 2169-897X
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830; 42105064; SC0018190; JP17H04856; JP20H05728
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 127; Journal Issue: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-897X
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Citation Formats
Na, Ying, Fu, Qiang, Leung, L. Ruby, Kodama, Chihiro, and Lu, Riyu. Mesoscale Convective Systems Simulated by a High–Resolution Global Nonhydrostatic Model Over the United States and China. United States: N. p., 2022.
Web. doi:10.1029/2021jd035916.
Na, Ying, Fu, Qiang, Leung, L. Ruby, Kodama, Chihiro, & Lu, Riyu. Mesoscale Convective Systems Simulated by a High–Resolution Global Nonhydrostatic Model Over the United States and China. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021jd035916
Na, Ying, Fu, Qiang, Leung, L. Ruby, Kodama, Chihiro, and Lu, Riyu. Mon .
"Mesoscale Convective Systems Simulated by a High–Resolution Global Nonhydrostatic Model Over the United States and China". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021jd035916. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1897516.
@article{osti_1897516,
title = {Mesoscale Convective Systems Simulated by a High–Resolution Global Nonhydrostatic Model Over the United States and China},
author = {Na, Ying and Fu, Qiang and Leung, L. Ruby and Kodama, Chihiro and Lu, Riyu},
abstractNote = {Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) contribute a large fraction of warm-season precipitation and generate hazardous weather with substantial socio-economic impacts. Uncertainties in convection parameterizations in climate models limit our understanding of MCS characteristics and reliability of future projection. We examine the MCS simulation from the global 14-km Nonhydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) without cumulus parameterization against satellite observation from Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) during 2001-2008. We focus on MCSs over the central U.S. and eastern China where MCSs prevail from March to August. A process-oriented tracking method incorporating both cloud and precipitation criteria is used to identify and track MCSs. About 140/100 MCSs initiate in the central U.S./eastern China per warm season and most of them initiate east of high mountains and in coastal regions. The frequency distribution of MCS lifetime is well captured in NICAM. But the simulated MCSs have stronger precipitation, smaller precipitation area, and larger cold cloud system than observed in both regions, which may be caused by weak entrainment as it is not well resolved at 14 km resolution. Here, the simulated MCS number is also underestimated in summer. By examining the climatological and MCS large-scale environments, the significant underestimation of MCS number in summer over the central U.S. may be attributed to the large climatological dry bias in the atmosphere. For China, mean moisture in summer is well simulated but deficiency in capturing the dynamic condition related to the coastal topography for triggering convection may have contributed to underestimation of MCS even in a sufficiently moist environment.},
doi = {10.1029/2021jd035916},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres},
number = 7,
volume = 127,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Mar 28 00:00:00 EDT 2022},
month = {Mon Mar 28 00:00:00 EDT 2022}
}
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