Abstract
Precipitation is a key process in the hydrologic cycle. However, accurate precipitation data are scarce in high mountainous areas, mainly restricted by complex topography, solid precipitation and sparse recording stations. In order to evaluate the quality of precipitation measurement, this study conducted a comparison campaign of precipitation measurements with the PWS100 laser sensor and the Geonor T-200B rain gauge for an entire year from 30 April 2018 to 1 May 2019 at an elevation of 3835 m in a nival glacial zone in eastern Tianshan, Central Asia. The results show that the daily precipitation values recorded by Geonor T-200B and PWS100 are well correlated and the annual precipitation amounts recorded by the two instruments differ by 7%, indicating good capabilities of both instruments in solid precipitation measurement. However, the amount of precipitation measured by Geonor T-200B was 36 mm lower in June to August and 120 mm higher in the remaining months compared with the values measured by PWS100. Our study indicated that Geonor T-200B is more efficient than PWS100 in terms of catching solid precipitation measurements. According to the PWS100 data, the experiment site was dominated by solid precipitation particles, accounting for 60% of total precipitation particles. Based on the precipitation particle and in-situ air temperature measurements, a set of temperature thresholds were established to discriminate rain, sleet and snow. The threshold temperature of rainfall and snowfall is −1.5 and 8 °C, respectively. When air temperature ranges from −1.5 to 8 °C, sleet occurs, meanwhile the ratio of rain to snow depends on air temperature.
Highlights
Precipitation is of paramount importance for the support of life and is essential for many human activities, especially as the primary source of drinking water and in the agricultural sector [1].Precipitation is a key process in the hydrologic cycle and the major driving process of terrestrial hydrology [2,3,4]
In addition to the precipitation data simultaneously recorded by the PWS100 laser present weather sensor and the Geonor T-200B precipitation gauge, the common atmospheric parameters were observed by diverse sensors on the Automatic Weather Station (Campbell Scientific), which include the air temperature and relative humidity, which were measured using a HC2-S3 sensor, and the wind speed was measured using a Young 05103 ultrasonic wind sensor, with a
It indicates that during the experiment period of 1 May 2018 and 30 April 2019, the total precipitation days recorded by Geonor T-200B and PWS100 were 213 and 190, respectively
Summary
Precipitation is of paramount importance for the support of life and is essential for many human activities, especially as the primary source of drinking water and in the agricultural sector [1]. For the first time in this area, by comparing observed results between Geonor T-200B and PWS100, this study is intended to discover the difference between the two instruments in precipitation measurement, to evaluate the quality of precipitation data and to reveal characteristics of different precipitation types as well. Such studies are scarce in this region and will provide a reference for precipitation measurement in glacierized areas in arid regions of Central Asia. The present weather sensor PWS100 (Campbell Scientific) and the Geonor T-200B precipitation gauge (Norway) with a single
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