Diurnal Cycle Of Rainfall Research Articles

Diurnal cycle of rainfall as predicted by WRF model : Verification using Model Evaluation Tools software

Diurnal cycle of rainfall as predicted by WRF model : Verification using Model Evaluation Tools software

Spatial Variations in the Diurnal Pattern of Precipitation over Nepal Himalayas

The Central Himalayan Region (Nepal Himalayas), comprised of two clear sub-parallel mountain ranges, is atypical location for studying the impact of rugged topography on spatio temporal variations of precipitation. The relationship between topography and diurnal cycles of rainfall have been investigated utilizing 13-year (1998–2010) high resolution (0.05° × 0.05°) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar (PR) data. An investigation of diurnal cycle of precipitation revealed an afternoon maximum during the pre-monsoon season (March–May) and midnight–early morning maximum during the summer monsoon season (June–August)over the southern slopes of the Himalayas. The summer monsoon exhibited a robust spatial variation of diurnal cycle of precipitation, during afternoon-evening time, primary rainfall peak appeared along the Lesser Himalayas (~2,000–2,200 m above mean sea level), while early-morning rain in contrast showed maximum concentration along the southern margin of the Himalayas (~500–700 m above MSL). An afternoon-evening rainfall peak was attributed to higher rain frequency, whereas early-morning rainfall peak was attributed to fewer but rather intense rainfall. It is suggested that, confluence between down slope and moist south easterly monsoon flow triggers convection near the foothills of the Himalayas during early morning period. The results further suggested the morning precipitation moves southward in the mature monsoon season.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/njst.v15i2.12116Nepal Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 15, No.2 (2014), 57-64

Influence of local circulations on wind, moisture, and precipitation close to Manaus City, Amazon Region, Brazil

AbstractThis paper presents long‐term‐derived local wind patterns as well as their role on moisture transport and on spatial/temporal distribution of precipitation close to Manaus City region. In this analysis we used surface weather station data and rainfall estimates from TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) and CMORPH (Climate Prediction Center morphing method). The weather stations promoted information of wind direction and dew point temperature, used here as atmospheric moisture indicator. The 3‐hourly average of accumulated precipitation, calculated using satellite estimates (TRMM and CMORPH), allowed to assess the spatial distribution of the rainfall diurnal cycle and how it is modulated by the local circulations. The station data results show that in the daytime, between 9:00 and 18:00 local time, winds away from the rivers are frequent, indicating action of the river breeze. This wind condition transports moist air from the rivers to the Manaus City. Winds toward rivers are commonly observed at night and in the morning, mostly at Ponta Pelada airport station, and are evidence of the land breeze occurrence. These local winds transport drier air from Manaus City to the river regions, as verified at Ponta Pelada station. The evidence of the local circulations and their impact on the moisture transport are more obvious in the dry season. The rainfall diurnal cycle has a spatial tendency varying according to the hour of the day. In the afternoon and in the evening, maximum precipitation values are observed over land, whereas reduced rainfall values are verified over rivers. At dawn and in the morning, the maximum values of accumulated precipitation are found over the rivers, mainly over and around the Amazon River. This rainfall spatial distribution is very likely modulated by local circulations and is much more evident in the rainiest quarter (March–May).

The impact of revised simplified Arakawa–Schubert convection parameterization scheme in CFSv2 on the simulation of the Indian summer monsoon

Keeping the systematic bias of the climate forecast system model version 2 (CFSv2) in mind, an attempt is made to improve the Indian summer monsoon (ISM) rainfall variability in the model from diurnal through daily to seasonal scale. Experiments with default simplified Arakawa–Schubert (SAS) and a revised SAS schemes are carried out to make 15 years climate run (free run) to evaluate the model fidelity with revised SAS as compared to default SAS. It is clearly seen that the revised SAS is able to reduce some of the biases of CFSv2 with default SAS. Improvement is seen in the annual seasonal cycle, onset and withdrawal but most importantly the rainfall probability distribution function (PDF) has improved significantly. To understand the reason behind the PDF improvement, the diurnal rainfall simulation is analysed and it is found that the PDF of diurnal rainfall has significantly improved with respect to even a high resolution CFSv2 T382 version. In the diurnal run with revised SAS, the PDF of rainfall over central India has remarkably improved. The improvement of diurnal cycle of total rainfall has actually been contributed by the improvement of diurnal cycle of convection and associated convective rainfall. This is reflected in outgoing longwave radiation and high cloud diurnal cycle. This improvement of convective cycle has resolved a long standing problem of dry bias by CFSv2 over Indian land mass and wet bias over equatorial Indian Ocean. Besides the improvement, there are some areas where there are still scopes for further development. The cold tropospheric temperature bias, low cloud fractions need further improvement. To check the role of shallow convection, another free run is made with revised SAS along with shallow convection (SC). The major difference between the new and old SC schemes lies in the heating and cooling behavior in lower-atmospheric layers above the planetary boundary layer. However, the inclusion of revised SC scheme could not show much improvement as compared to revised SAS with deep convection. Thus, it seems that revised SAS with deep convection can be a potentially better parameterization scheme for CFSv2 in simulating ISM rainfall variability.

Effects of cumulus parameterizations on predictions of summer flood in the Central United States

This study comprehensively evaluates the effects of twelve cumulus parameterization (CUP) schemes on simulations of 1993 and 2008 Central US summer floods using the regional climate-weather research and forecasting model. The CUP schemes have distinct skills in predicting the summer mean pattern, daily rainfall frequency and precipitation diurnal cycle. Most CUP schemes largely underestimate the magnitude of Central US floods, but three schemes including the ensemble cumulus parameterization (ECP), the Grell-3 ensemble cumulus parameterization (G3) and Zhang-McFarlane-Liang cumulus parameterization (ZML) show clear advantages over others in reproducing both floods location and amount. In particular, the ECP scheme with the moisture convergence closure over land and cloud-base vertical velocity closure over oceans not only reduces the wet biases in the G3 and ZML schemes along the US coastal oceans, but also accurately reproduces the Central US daily precipitation variation and frequency distribution. The Grell (GR) scheme shows superiority in reproducing the Central US nocturnal rainfall maxima, but others generally fail. This advantage of GR scheme is primarily due to its closure assumption in which the convection is determined by the tendency of large-scale instability. Future study will attempt to incorporate the large-scale tendency assumption as a trigger function in the ECP scheme to improve its prediction of Central US rainfall diurnal cycle.

Evaluation of the Warm-Season Diurnal Variability over East Asia in Recent Reanalyses JRA-55, ERA-Interim, NCEP CFSR, and NASA MERRA

Abstract Four recent reanalyses—the 55-yr Japanese Reanalysis Project (JRA-55), Interim ECWMF Re-Analysis (ERA-I), NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), and NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)—are assessed to clarify their quality in representing the diurnal cycle over East Asia. They are found to present similar patterns/structure and summer progress of the mean wind diurnal cycle, whereas they exhibit some differences in diurnal amplitude, particularly for the low-level meridional wind. An evaluation with intense soundings suggests that the amplitude difference mainly results from the diurnal variation of mean bias that differs among reanalyses. The root-mean-square (RMS) error is found to have a diurnal variation more evident in CFSR and MERRA than that in JRA-55 and ERA-I, which strongly affects the representation of the varying diurnal amplitude at the peak hours of RMS error. Compared with satellite-derived rainfall, the four reanalyses are shown to reproduce well the rainfall diurnal cycle over East Asia in terms of large-scale terrain contrast, summer progress, and interannual variability. JRA-55 even presents a long-term increase of morning rainfall percentage over the east China plain over the past four decades, consistent with rain gauge observations. The four reanalyses exhibit some considerable discrepancies at regional scale; JRA-55 gives the best capture of the rainfall diurnal cycle over the Tibetan Plateau and the eastward propagation to the eastern lees. These results suggest that new reanalyses are potentially applicable for studying the large-scale diurnal variability over East Asia, whereas their different preferences, especially at regional scale, should be of concern in data application.

An Investigation of Warm Rainfall Microphysics in the Southern Appalachians: Orographic Enhancement via Low-Level Seeder–Feeder Interactions

Abstract Observations of the vertical structure of rainfall, surface rain rates, and drop size distributions (DSDs) in the southern Appalachians were analyzed with a focus on the diurnal cycle of rainfall. In the inner mountain region, a 5-yr high-elevation rain gauge dataset shows that light rainfall, described here as rainfall intensity less than 3 mm h−1 over a time scale of 5 min, accounts for 30%–50% of annual accumulations. The data also reveal warm-season events characterized by heavy surface rainfall in valleys and along ridgelines inconsistent with radar observations of the vertical structure of precipitation. Next, a stochastic column model of advection–coalescence–breakup of warm rain DSDs was used to investigate three illustrative events. The integrated analysis of observations and model simulations suggests that seeder–feeder interactions (i.e., Bergeron processes) between incoming rainfall systems and local fog and/or low-level clouds with very high number concentrations of small drops (<0.2 mm) govern surface rainfall intensity through driving significant increases in coalescence rates and efficiency. Specifically, the model shows how accelerated growth of small- and moderate-size raindrops (<2 mm) via Bergeron processes can enhance surface rainfall rates by one order of magnitude for durations up to 1 h as in the observations. An examination of the fingerprints of seeder–feeder processes on DSD statistics conducted by tracking the temporal evolution of mass spectrum parameters points to the critical need for improved characterization of hydrometeor microstructure evolution, from mist formation to fog and from drizzle development to rainfall.

Analyses of the temporal and spatial structures of heavy rainfall from a catalog of high-resolution radar rainfall fields

In this paper, we develop a storm catalog of heavy rainfall events for a region centered on the Milwaukee, Wisconsin WSR-88D (Weather Surveillance Radar — 1988 Doppler) radar. The study region includes portions of southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois and Lake Michigan. The long-term objective of this study is to develop rainfall frequency analysis methods based on a storm catalog of major rain events. The specific objectives of this study are to develop a long-term catalog of high-resolution radar rainfall fields and characterize key features of the space–time variability of rainfall. The research questions that underlie these objectives are: 1) What are the spatial heterogeneities of rainfall over the study region for major flood-producing storm systems? 2) What are the key elements of storm evolution that control the scale-dependent properties of extreme rainfall? The storm catalog contains a record of the 50 “largest” storm days during the 1996–2011 observation period. We show that mean rainfall for the 50 largest storm days exhibits pronounced spatial heterogeneity with a broad maximum in western Wisconsin and a minimum in the eastern portion of the study region over Lake Michigan. We also show that there is a narrow line of maximum mean rainfall extending from west to east along the Wisconsin–Illinois border. This feature is tied to a maximum in the probability of daily rainfall exceeding 100mm. There are characteristic elements to the storm life cycle of heavy rainfall days that relate to size, structure and evolution of heavy rainfall. Extreme rainfall is also linked with severe weather (tornados, large hail and damaging wind). The diurnal cycle of rainfall for heavy rain days is characterized by an early peak in the largest rainfall rates, an afternoon–evening peak in rain area exceeding 25mmh−1 and development of a large stratiform rain area during the night and early morning.

The roles of diurnal forcing and large‐scale moisture transport for initiating rain over northwest Australia in a GCM

The representation of rainfall, and in particular its diurnal cycle, is generally poor in general circulation models (GCMs). Nonetheless, studies make use of GCMs in future climate projections in regions where precipitation has a strong diurnal cycle. In this study we evaluate whether one GCM (ACCESS1.3) can represent the rainfall in such a region (Australia) where the diurnal cycle of rainfall is produced as a result of both the destabilisation of the boundary layer (convection) and a larger‐scale reorganisation of the low‐level flow, the latter of which may be resolved by a GCM. In northern and eastern Australia, where the diurnal cycle of rainfall is controlled by convective processes, the GCM produces rain 3 to 6 h too early in the day. Nevertheless, the model represents the continental‐scale reorganisation of the low‐level circulation that results from the diurnal cycle of surface heating and cooling. A nocturnal low‐level jet forms over the western half of the continent with strong convergence at the jet exit, which initiates rain overnight in the continental northwest, in agreement with previous work. The model also captures the change in the air‐flow direction, from a southeasterly to a northeasterly, responsible for bringing the necessary moisture for precipitation to occur. Thus, while the model may have a tendency to initiate convection too early, it is able to represent the larger‐scale nocturnal reorganisation of the flow and the associated rainfall.

Convective Instability Associated with the Eastward-Propagating Rainfall Episodes over Eastern China during the Warm Season

AbstractAnalysis of the latest satellite rainfall and reanalysis datasets from 1998 to 2012 demonstrates that eastward-propagating rainfall episodes, which typically occur in late night and morning, are determinant factors for the rainfall diurnal cycle and climate anomalies over eastern China. The episode growth and propagation are facilitated by an elevated layer of conditionally unstable air in a mesoscale zone at their eastern leading edge. The convective available potential energy (CAPE), despite convection consumption and nocturnal cooling, decreases only from a high value to a moderate one during episode duration. An estimate of the CAPE generation budget suggests that low-level horizontal advection and vertical lifting of the warm moist air can produce sufficient CAPE to balance other stabilization effects, sustaining the mesoscale maximum of convective instability ahead of rainfall episodes. These instability geneses are pronounced at the convection growth stage and linked closely to a mesoscale nocturnal low-level jet. Thus, a proper representation of them in forecast models is essential for improved prediction of the warm-season rainfall.

Simulation of the annual and diurnal cycles of rainfall over South Africa by a regional climate model

The capability of a current state-of-the-art regional climate model for simulating the diurnal and annual cycles of rainfall over a complex subtropical region is documented here. Hourly rainfall is simulated over Southern Africa for 1998–2006 by the non-hydrostatic model weather research and forecasting (WRF), and compared to a network of 103 stations covering South Africa. We used five simulations, four of which consist of different parameterizations for atmospheric convection at a 0.5 × 0.5° resolution, performed to test the physic-dependency of the results. The fifth experiment uses explicit convection over tropical South Africa at a 1/30° resolution. WRF simulates realistic mean rainfall fields, albeit wet biases over tropical Africa. The model mean biases are strongly modulated by the convective scheme used for the simulations. The annual cycle of rainfall is well simulated over South Africa, mostly influenced by tropical summer rainfall except in the Western Cape region experiencing winter rainfall. The diurnal cycle shows a timing bias, with atmospheric convection occurring too early in the afternoon, and causing too abundant rainfall. This result, particularly true in summer over the northeastern part of the country, is weakly physic-dependent. Cloud-resolving simulations do not clearly reduce the diurnal cycle biases. In the end, the rainfall overestimations appear to be mostly imputable to the afternoon hours of the austral summer rainy season, i.e., the periods during which convective activity is intense over the region.

Convective Rainfall Systems in the La Plata Basin

Hourly rainfall estimates from integrated satellite data are used to build a dynamically based climatology of convectively generated rainfall across the La Plata Basin in South America and adjacent oceans. Herein, the focus of this manuscript is on 20S to 35S, including the Andes cordillera. Emphasis is placed on rainfall resulting from organized convective regimes which are known to produce the majority of seasonal rainfall in Southern South America and other continents. The statistical characteristics of individual events are quantified and examined with respect to regional atmospheric conditions. Among the factors considered are steering winds and wind shear, convective available potential energy (CAPE), localized sensible and latent heat sources over mountains and wetlands (Chaco), and the occurrence of baroclinic waves such as mid-latitude jet stream transient disturbances. Forcing and convective triggering mechanisms are inferred from the diagnosis of systematic patterns as evidenced in the continental diurnal cycle and longer periods of natural variability. The diurnal cycle of rainfall is especially informative with respect to the frequency and phase of rainfall associated with long-lived propagating rainfall “episodes”. Similar to findings in tropical northern Africa and tropical northern Australia, there is a strong presence of organized convection, which can propagate zonally hundreds to thousands of km as a coherent sequence of mesoscale convective systems. Convective triggering is often associated with elevated terrain, the Andes, and the La Plata basin region, which is especially rich in moist static energy. The passage of baroclinic waves over the Andes is consistent with eastward propagating clusters of convection, within which westward-propagating systems also reside. These organized convective systems over the La Plata Basin are analyzed with hourly rainfall estimates with CMOPRH method. Rainfall estimates at 8-km spatial resolution were obtained between December 2002 and June 2008. Very few data are missing so it is one of the most complete, longest and highest resolution data sets available to date that allows a comprehensive description of spatial and temporal distribution of convection from its hourly to interannual variability over the region. In this work, diurnal, intra and inter seasonal and interannual cycles are obtained and examined in the light of episodes of organized convection. Daily, monthly and yearly spatial patterns of rainfall accumulation over the La Plata Basin region vary both inter- and intra-seasonally and are forced by underlying dynamic and thermodynamics mechanisms. Time-longitude diagrams of CMORPH hourly rainfall are used to describe the genesis, structure, longevity, phase speed and inferences of the underlying dynamics and thermodynamics of episodes of organized convection. The episodes of organized convection are analyzed in terms of their duration, span, phase speed, starting and ending time, starting and ending longitude, month and year through frequency distribution analysis. Most episodes of organized convection move eastward across the La Plata Basin with variable phase speeds. Basic descriptive statistics indicate that the La Plata eastward propagating average phase speed is 13.0 m·s-1.

Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Heavy Hourly Rainfall in the United States

Abstract The climatology of heavy rain events from hourly precipitation observations by Brooks and Stensrud is revisited in this study using two high-resolution precipitation datasets that incorporate both gauge observations and radar estimates. Analyses show a seasonal cycle of heavy rain events originating along the Gulf Coast and expanding across the eastern two-thirds of the United States by the summer, comparing well to previous findings. The frequency of extreme events is estimated, and may provide improvements over prior results due to both the increased spatial resolution of these data and improved techniques used in the estimation. The diurnal cycle of heavy rainfall is also examined, showing distinct differences in the strength of the cycle between seasons.

Diurnal cycles of precipitation over subtropical China in IPCC AR5 AMIP simulations

Atmospheric Intercomparison Project simulations of the summertime diurnal cycle of precipitation and low-level winds over subtropical China by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report models were evaluated. By analyzing the diurnal variation of convective and stratiform components, results confirmed that major biases in rainfall diurnal cycles over subtropical China are due to convection parameterization and further pointed to the diurnal variation of convective rainfall being closely related to the closure of the convective scheme. All models captured the early-morning peak of total rainfall over the East China Sea, but most models had problems in simulating diurnal rainfall variations over land areas of subtropical China. When total rainfall was divided into stratiform and convective rainfall, all models successfully simulated the diurnal variation of stratiform rainfall with a maximum in the early morning. The models, overestimating noon-time (nocturnal) total rainfall over land, generally simulated too much convective rainfall, which peaked close to noon (midnight), sharing some similarities in the closures of their deep convection schemes. The better performance of the Meteorological Research Institute atmosphere-ocean coupled global climate model version 3 (MRI-CGCM3) is attributed to the well captured ratio of the two kinds of rainfall, but not diurnal variations of the two components. Therefore, a proper ratio of convective and stratiform rainfall to total rainfall is also important to improve simulated diurnal rainfall variation.

Comparison of Precipitation Derived from the ECMWF Operational Forecast Model and Satellite Precipitation Datasets

AbstractPrecipitation is an important component of the climate system, and the accurate representation of the diurnal rainfall cycle is a key test of model performance. Although the modeling of precipitation in the cooler midlatitudes has improved, in the tropics substantial errors still occur. Precipitation from the operational ECMWF forecast model is compared with satellite-derived products from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) and TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) to assess the mean annual and seasonal diurnal rainfall cycles. The analysis encompasses the global tropics and subtropics (40°N–40°S) over a 7-yr period from 2004 to 2011. The primary aim of the paper is to evaluate the ability of an operational numerical model and satellite products to retrieve subdaily rainfall. It was found that during the first half of the analysis period the ECMWF model overestimated precipitation by up to 15% in the tropics, although after the implementation of a new convective parameterization in November 2007 this bias fell to about 4%. The ECMWF model poorly represented the diurnal cycle, simulating rainfall too early compared to the TMPA and TRMM PR products; the model simulation of precipitation was particularly poor over Indonesia. In addition, the model did not appear to simulate mountain-slope breezes well or adequately capture many of the characteristics of mesoscale convective systems. The work highlights areas for further study to improve the representation of subgrid-scale processes in parameterization schemes and improvements in model resolution. In particular, the proper representation of subdaily precipitation in models is critical for hydrological modeling and flow forecasting.

Modulation of the Diurnal Cycle of Rainfall Associated with the MJO Observed by a Dense Hourly Rain Gauge Network at Sarawak, Borneo

Abstract This study investigates spatiotemporal characteristics of the diurnal cycle (DC) of rainfall over Sarawak in northwest Borneo Island, associated with large-scale intraseasonal disturbances represented by the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). This is accomplished using a dense hourly rain gauge network and satellite data. The spatial pattern of the DC is classified into two major groups, coastal and interior regions, based on remarkable differences in rainfall peak times and amplitudes. Amplitudes of the DC and daily rainfall amount increase in active MJO phases at all sites, but the MJO has a stronger effect in the coastal region than the interior region. This modulation of rainfall by the MJO disturbance is largely attributed to rainfall frequency in the interior region, but to both frequency and intensity of rainfall in the coastal region. The low-level westerly wind anomaly enhances convergence, the land–sea breeze, and a midnight rainfall peak in the coastal region during the active MJO phase. Analysis of moisture flux divergence and moist static instability suggests the different dynamics of this modulation of the DC between coastal and interior regions.

Modulation of the diurnal cycle of rainfall over India by intraseasonal variations of Indian summer monsoon

ABSTRACTChanges in the amplitude and phase of the diurnal cycle of rainfall due to changes in the background circulation and thermodynamics associated with the intraseasonal variability of Indian summer monsoon have important implications for weather prediction over the region. Hourly rainfall data available at 91 Indian stations for 30 years of observations are examined to determine the role of intraseasonal variations of Indian summer monsoon in modulating the diurnal cycle of rainfall over four homogenous regions. Harmonic analysis of the diurnal cycle of rainfall shows predominance of principal harmonic during the break phase of monsoon. During an active phase first two harmonics contribute substantially to the total variance in central parts of the country. It is observed that peak rainfall occurs in the morning hours during both the active and break phases along the West Coast with small diurnal variation in rainfall. Two peaks in the diurnal cycle are observed during active phases over central India. This region shows delay in the occurrence of afternoon peak and rise in rainfall intensity during the break phase of recent years, while, increase in rainfall intensity at all hours during break phases is observed along the West Coast of India in recent years. Further analysis of meteorological parameters indicates that lower‐level convergence during late afternoon hours, reduction in geopotential height and increase in specific humidity (850 hPa) in central parts of India during morning and evening hours are in phase with the two maxima observed in the diurnal cycle of rainfall in this region. Therefore, spatial variations in daily rainfall pattern during active/break phases can be attributed to orographic effect and heterogeneous convective development in different parts of the country. © 2013 Royal Meteorological Society

Diurnal cycle of summer rainfall in Shandong of eastern China

ABSTRACTUsing the hourly precipitation data at 123 gauge stations of Shandong province in eastern China during 1996–2008, the authors examine the spatial distribution of summer (June–July–August) precipitation amount (PA), precipitation intensity (PI), and precipitation frequency (PF) and their diurnal cycles. The results show that the diurnal peak of PA decreases from the southeastern to northwestern Shandong and mainly appears in the early morning and afternoon. The large diurnal peak of PA mainly appears in a large area from the hilly areas of southern Shandong to the eastern coasts. Large diurnal peak of PI mainly appears along the lower reaches of the Yellow River in northern Shandong. The diurnal peak of PF also decreases from southeastern to northwestern Shandong. The diurnal cycles of PA and PI have two peaks and they occur in the early morning and the afternoon, respectively. The diurnal cycle of PF has one peak in the morning. Large PA values show a southwestward time delay over northwestern Shandong, a northeastward time delay over central and southeastern Shandong in the afternoon, and a southeastward time delay over central and southeastern Shandong in the morning. Moreover, they also show a time delay from the central mountains of Shandong to its adjacent areas in the afternoon. When hourly precipitation is weaker, the diurnal cycles of PA and PF show a two‐peak feature. With following the increase of hourly precipitation, the diurnal peak number also tends to increase. © 2013 The Authors. International Journal of Climatology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Diurnal Cycle of Summer Precipitation over Subtropical East Asia in CAM5

Abstract The simulations of summertime diurnal cycle of precipitation and low-level winds by the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5, are evaluated over subtropical East Asia. The evaluation reveals the physical cause of the observed diurnal rainfall variation in East Asia and points to the source of model strengths and weaknesses. Two model versions with horizontal resolutions of 2.8° and 0.5° are used. The models can reproduce the diurnal phase of large-scale winds over East Asia, with an enhanced low-level southwesterly in early morning. Correspondingly, models successfully simulated the diurnal variation of stratiform rainfall with a maximum in early morning. However, the simulated convective rainfall occurs at local noontime, earlier than observations and with larger amplitude (normalized by the daily mean). As a result, models simulated a weaker diurnal cycle in total rainfall over the western plain of China due to an out-of-phase cancellation between convective and stratiform rainfalls and a noontime maximum of total rainfall over the eastern plain of China. Over the East China Sea, models simulated the early-morning maximum of convective precipitation and, together with the correct phase of the stratiform rainfall, they captured the diurnal cycle of total precipitation. The superposition of the stratiform and convective rainfalls also explains the observed diurnal cycle in total rainfall in East Asia. Relative to the coarse-resolution model, the high-resolution model simulated slight improvement in diurnal rainfall amplitudes, due to the larger amplitude of stratiform rainfall. The two models, however, suffer from the same major biases in rainfall diurnal cycles due to the convection parameterization.

Influence of summer monsoon diurnal cycle on moisture transport and precipitation over eastern China

Diurnal variability of the summer monsoon over China, a key element affecting regional climate, is examined using the latest reanalysis dataset and satellite rain estimates. Diurnal variation of low‐level wind is found to be pronounced over South China during active monsoon days. Mean wind speed attains a maximum (minimum) in early morning (afternoon), with a diurnal range of 2–3 m/s, double that of inactive monsoon days. The largest amplitude typically appears at 850 hPa, consistent with radiosonde observations. Such a monsoon diurnal cycle can strengthen low‐level moisture transport at night by about 20% more than during the day. Nocturnal moisture fluxes converge toward Central China and lead to a meso‐synoptic‐scale moisture sink during the late night and morning, which plays a role in regulating the regional water budget on a diurnal time scale. Monsoon flow also helps provide substantial moisture over low‐lying areas in the morning hours. Correspondingly, morning rainfall undergoes a remarkable increase and greatly contributes to the diurnal cycle of summer rainfall. The strongest response comes from meso‐α‐scale rain events that not only become prominent during active monsoon days but also possess a dominant morning peak. These morning events occur mainly on the basins and plains of Central China, where the monsoon diurnal cycle promotes nighttime mesoscale convection. These tend to shift northward from June to August, with the progress of the monsoon diurnal cycle, thereby producing the morning‐peak summer rainband. The findings point to an efficiency of nocturnal monsoon flow influencing the warm‐season weather and climate over eastern China.