TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding Ice Cloud-Precipitation Properties of Three Modes of Mesoscale Convective Systems During PECAN
AU - Cui, Wenjun
AU - Dong, Xiquan
AU - Xi, Baike
AU - Fan, Jiwen
AU - Tian, Jingjing
AU - Wang, Jingyu
AU - McHardy, Theodore M.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was primarily supported by the Climate Model Development and Validation (CMDV) program funded by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in the US Department of Energy Office of Science under grant DE‐SC0017015 at the University of Arizona. Baike Xi and Theodore M. McHardy were supported by NASA CERES project under grant NNX17AC52G at the University of Arizona. Special thanks to the PECAN team for collecting the ground‐based observations. The data collected during PECAN can be downloaded from http://data.eol.ucar.edu/master_list/? project=PECAN. We also thank the NSSL team for providing the MRMS products. The MRMS reflectivity data can be found at http://mrms.ncep.noaa. gov/data/, and the MRMS precipitation data are available at http://mtarchive. geol.iastate.edu/. The MERRA2 data can be downloaded from https://gmao. gsfc.nasa.gov/reanalysis/MERRA‐2/ data_access/.
Publisher Copyright:
©2019. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2019/4/16
Y1 - 2019/4/16
N2 - This study analyzes the precipitation and ice cloud microphysical features of three common modes of linear mesoscale convective systems during the Plains Elevated Convection at Night (PECAN) campaign. Three cases, one for each linear mesoscale convective system archetype (trailing stratiform, leading stratiform, and parallel stratiform precipitation), are selected. We focus primarily on analyzing ice cloud microphysical properties and precipitation rates (PRs) over the classified convective core (CC) and stratiform rain (SR) regions, as well as the two stratiform regions that developed behind (SR1) and ahead (SR2) of the convective line relative to the storm motion. In the three selected cases, the ice water path (IWP) and PR have strong correlations in the CC, but not in the SR. In terms of the temporal evolution of the mean IWPs and PRs, both CC and SR IWPs, as well as CC PRs, reach peaks quickly but take a longer time to dissipate than the increase period. For all the three cases, both SR1 and SR2 IWPs are 20–70% of their corresponding CC values in both the leading stratiform and parallel stratiform cases and up to 95% for the trailing stratiform case, while all of their PRs are only 7–25% of their CC values. These values suggest not only that the SR PRs may depend on IWPs but also that the microphysical properties of ice particles such as habit and size distribution may play an important role. Utilizing cloud-resolving simulations of these systems may provide better understanding of the physical meanings behind the results in the future.
AB - This study analyzes the precipitation and ice cloud microphysical features of three common modes of linear mesoscale convective systems during the Plains Elevated Convection at Night (PECAN) campaign. Three cases, one for each linear mesoscale convective system archetype (trailing stratiform, leading stratiform, and parallel stratiform precipitation), are selected. We focus primarily on analyzing ice cloud microphysical properties and precipitation rates (PRs) over the classified convective core (CC) and stratiform rain (SR) regions, as well as the two stratiform regions that developed behind (SR1) and ahead (SR2) of the convective line relative to the storm motion. In the three selected cases, the ice water path (IWP) and PR have strong correlations in the CC, but not in the SR. In terms of the temporal evolution of the mean IWPs and PRs, both CC and SR IWPs, as well as CC PRs, reach peaks quickly but take a longer time to dissipate than the increase period. For all the three cases, both SR1 and SR2 IWPs are 20–70% of their corresponding CC values in both the leading stratiform and parallel stratiform cases and up to 95% for the trailing stratiform case, while all of their PRs are only 7–25% of their CC values. These values suggest not only that the SR PRs may depend on IWPs but also that the microphysical properties of ice particles such as habit and size distribution may play an important role. Utilizing cloud-resolving simulations of these systems may provide better understanding of the physical meanings behind the results in the future.
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U2 - 10.1029/2019JD030330
DO - 10.1029/2019JD030330
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064521083
VL - 124
SP - 4121
EP - 4140
JO - Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
JF - Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
SN - 2169-897X
IS - 7
ER -