High-Rate Precipitation Occurrence Modulated by Solar Wind High-Speed Streams

Paul Prikryl,Emil A Prikryl,Vojto Rušin

doi:10.3390/atmos12091186

Paul Prikryl, Emil A Prikryl + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12091186

Copy DOI

Journal: Atmosphere	Publication Date: Sep 15, 2021
Citations: 1	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of New Brunswick, NOSM University

Abstract

Extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall causing floods and flash floods continue to present difficult challenges in forecasting. Using gridded daily precipitation datasets in conjunction with solar wind data it is shown that high-rate precipitation occurrence is modulated by solar wind high-speed streams. Superposed epoch analysis shows a statistical increase in the occurrence of high-rate precipitation following arrivals of high-speed streams from coronal holes, including their recurrence with the solar rotation period of 27 days. These results are consistent with the observed tendency of heavy rainfall leading to floods and flash floods in Japan, Australia, and continental United States to follow arrivals of high-speed streams. A possible role of the solar wind–magnetosphere–ionosphere–atmosphere coupling in weather as mediated by globally propagating aurorally excited atmospheric gravity waves triggering conditional moist instabilities leading to convection in the troposphere that has been proposed in previous publications is highlighted.

Highlights

Climate change is affecting the stability of Earth’s atmosphere and increasing the occurrence of extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall causing floods and landslides, which pose natural hazards with major socio-economic impacts [1,2,3]
The superposed epoch (SPE) analysis is keyed to solar wind events, such as heliospheric current sheets (HCSs) crossings or high-speed streams (HSSs)/co-rotating interaction regions (CIRs) arrivals, which is often done in studies of solar-terrestrial relations, including the response of the geomagnetic activity [38], the Wilcox effect [16,39], and most recently heavy rainfall occurrence [26]
We have examined high-rate precipitation leading to floods and flash floods in Japan, Australia, and the continental U.S in the context of solar wind, linking the occurrence of such weather events to arrivals of solar wind HSS/CIRs

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is affecting the stability of Earth’s atmosphere and increasing the occurrence of extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall causing floods and landslides, which pose natural hazards with major socio-economic impacts [1,2,3]. This is to highlight the motivation of this research and the potentially global impact of MIA coupling on tropospheric weather as previously discussed [23,25], and to emphasize the characteristics of solar wind structure relevant to the SPE analysis in the subsequent sections.

Data Sources and Methods

High-Rate Precipitation Events in Japan and Solar wind High-Speed Streams

Discussion

Conclusions