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  • Author or Editor: Roger A. Pielke Sr. x
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Conrad L. Ziegler
,
Tsengdar J. Lee
, and
Roger A. Pielke Sr.

Abstract

A nonhydrostatic, three-dimensional version of the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CSU-RAMS) is used to deduce the processes responsible for the formation of drylines and the subsequent initiation of deep, moist dryline convection. A range of cumuliform cloud types are explicitly simulated along drylines on 15, 16, and 26 May 1991 in accordance with observations.

In the simulations, narrow convergence bands along the dryline provide the lift to initiate deep moist convection. The thermally direct secondary convective boundary layer (CBL) circulations along the dryline are frontogenetic and solenoidally forced. Maximum updrafts reach 5 m s−1 and the bands are 3–9 km wide and 10–100 km or more in length. The updrafts penetrate and are decelerated by the overlying stable air above the CBL, reaching depths of about 2000 m in the cases studied. Moisture convergence along the mesoscale updraft bands destabilizes the local sounding to deep convection, while simultaneously decreasing the CIN to zero where storms subsequently develop. The lapse rates of vapor mixing ratio and potential temperature in the mesoscale updrafts are rather small, indicating that increases of the lifted condensation level (LCL) and level of free convection (LFC) due to mixing following the parcel motion are also small. Simulated convective clouds of all modes, including shallow forced cumulus and storms, develop in regions where the CIN ranges from zero up to the order of the peak kinetic energy of the boundary layer updraft and moisture is sufficiently deep to permit water saturation to develop in the boundary layer.

The findings suggest that classic cloud models may not adequately simulate the early development of dryline storms due to their use of thermal bubbles to initiate convection and their assumption of a horizontally homogeneous environment. In contrast, cautious optimism may be warranted in regard to operational numerical prediction of drylines and the threat of attendant deep convection with mesoscale models.

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Lisa S. Darby
,
Robert M. Banta
, and
Roger A. Pielke Sr.

Abstract

A NOAA/Environmental Technology Laboratory Doppler lidar measured the life cycle of the land- and sea-breeze system at Monterey Bay, California, in 1987, during the Land–Sea Breeze Experiment (LASBEX). On days with offshore synoptic flow, the transition to onshore flow (the sea breeze) was a distinct process easily detected by lidar. Finescale lidar measurements showed the reversal from offshore to onshore flow near the coast, its gradual vertical and horizontal expansion, and a dual structure to the sea-breeze flow in its early formative stages. Initially, a shallow (<500 m) sea breeze formed that later became embedded in a weaker onshore flow that was ∼1 km deep. Eventually these two flows blended together to form a mature sea breeze about 1 km deep.

Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) two-dimensional simulations successfully simulated this dual structure of the sea-breeze flow when both the coastal mountain range just east of Monterey Bay and the Sierra Nevada range, peaking 300 km east of the shore, were included in the domain. Various sensitivity simulations were conducted to isolate the roles played by the land–water contrast, the coastal mountain range, and the Sierra Nevada range. Notable results included the following: 1) the Sierra Nevada range greatly affected the winds above 1500 m at the shore, even though the peak of the mountain range was 300 km east of the shore; 2) the winds at the shore, below 1500 m, were most affected by the land–sea contrast and the coastal mountain range; and 3) the presence of the coastal mountain range enhanced the depth of the sea-breeze flow but not necessarily its speed.

A factor separation method was employed to further isolate the contributions of the terrain and land–water contrast to the vertical structure of the modeled u component of the wind. When both mountains were included in the domain, the interaction of the slope flows generated by these mountains acted to strongly enhance onshore flow early in the morning. In contrast, the interaction of flows generated by the land–water contrast and the sloping terrain had its strongest effect late in the afternoon and early evening, working to oppose the sea-breeze flow. The triple interaction of the flows generated by the coastal mountain, inland mountain, and the land–water contrast enhanced the sea-breeze flow from the surface to 500 m above the sea level throughout the day.

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U. S. Nair
,
Mark R. Hjelmfelt
, and
Roger A. Pielke Sr.

Abstract

Strong easterly flow of low-level moist air over the eastern slopes of the Black Hills on 9–10 June 1972 generated a storm system that produced a flash flood, devastating the area. Based on observations from this storm event, and also from the similar Big Thompson 1976 storm event, conceptual models have been developed to explain the unusually high precipitation efficiency. In this study, the Black Hills storm is simulated using the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System. Simulations with homogeneous and inhomogeneous initializations and different grid structures are presented. The conceptual models of storm structure proposed by previous studies are examined in light of the present simulations.

Both homogeneous and inhomogeneous initialization results capture the intense nature of the storm, but the inhomogeneous simulation produced a precipitation pattern closer to the observed pattern. The simulations point to stationary tilted updrafts, with precipitation falling out to the rear as the preferred storm structure. Experiments with different grid structures point to the importance of removing the lateral boundaries far from the region of activity. Overall, simulation performance in capturing the observed behavior of the storm system was enhanced by use of inhomogeneous initialization.

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Curtis H. Marshall
,
Roger A. Pielke Sr.
, and
Louis T. Steyaert

Abstract

On several occasions, winter freezes have wrought severe destruction on Florida agriculture. A series of devastating freezes around the turn of the twentieth century, and again during the 1980s, were related to anomalies in the large-scale flow of the ocean–atmosphere system. During the twentieth century, substantial areas of wetlands in south Florida were drained and converted to agricultural land for winter fresh vegetable and sugarcane production. During this time, much of the citrus industry also was relocated to those areas to escape the risk of freeze farther to the north. The purpose of this paper is to present a modeling study designed to investigate whether the conversion of the wetlands to agriculture itself could have resulted in or exacerbated the severity of recent freezes in those agricultural areas of south Florida.

For three recent freeze events, a pair of simulations was undertaken with the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System. One member of each pair employed land surface properties that represent pre-1900s (near natural) land cover, whereas the other member of each pair employed data that represent near-current land-use patterns as derived from analysis of Landsat data valid for 1992/93. These two different land cover datasets capture well the conversion of wetlands to agriculture in south Florida during the twentieth century. Use of current land surface properties resulted in colder simulated minimum temperatures and temperatures that remained below freezing for a longer period at locations of key agricultural production centers in south Florida that were once natural wetlands. Examination of time series of the surface energy budget from one of the cases reveals that when natural land cover is used, a persistent moisture flux from the underlying wetlands during the nighttime hours served to prevent the development of below-freezing temperatures at those same locations. When the model results were subjected to an important sensitivity factor, the depth of standing water in the wetlands, the outcome remained consistent. These results provide another example of the potential for humans to perturb the climate system in ways that can have severe socioeconomic consequences by altering the land surface alone.

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Curtis H. Marshall
,
Roger A. Pielke Sr.
,
Louis T. Steyaert
, and
Debra A. Willard

Abstract

During the twentieth century, the natural landscape of the Florida peninsula was transformed extensively by agriculture, urbanization, and the diversion of surface water features. The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical modeling study in which the possible impacts of this transformation on the warm season climate of the region were investigated. For three separate July–August periods (1973, 1989, and 1994), a pair of simulations was performed with the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System. Within each pair, the simulations differed only in the specification of land-cover class. The two different classes were specified using highly detailed datasets that were constructed to represent pre-1900 natural land cover and 1993 land-use patterns, thus capturing the landscape transformation within each pair of simulations.

When the pre-1900 natural cover was replaced with the 1993 land-use dataset, the simulated spatial patterns of the surface sensible and latent heat flux were altered significantly, resulting in changes in the structure and strength of climatologically persistent, surface-forced mesoscale circulations—particularly the afternoon sea-breeze fronts. This mechanism was associated with marked changes in the spatial distribution of convective rainfall totals over the peninsula. When averaged over the model domain, this redistribution was reflected as an overall decrease in the 2-month precipitation total. In addition, the domain average of the diurnal cycle of 2-m temperature was amplified, with a noted increase in the daytime maximum. These results were consistent among all three simulated periods, and largely unchanged when subjected to a number of model sensitivity factors. Furthermore, the model results are in reasonable agreement with an analysis of observational data that indicates decreasing regional precipitation and increasing daytime maximum temperature during the twentieth century.

These results could have important implications for water resource and land-use management issues in south Florida, including efforts to restore and preserve the natural hydroclimate of the Everglades ecosystem. This study also provides more evidence for the need to consider anthropogenic land-cover change when evaluating climate trends.

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Nguyen Minh Truong
,
Tran Tan Tien
,
Roger A. Pielke Sr.
,
Christopher L. Castro
, and
Giovanni Leoncini

Abstract

From 24 to 26 November 2004, an extreme heavy rainfall event occurred in the mountainous provinces of central Vietnam, resulting in severe flooding along local rivers. The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System, version 4.4, is used to simulate this event. In the present study, the convective parameterization scheme includes the original Kain–Fritsch scheme and a modified one in which a new diagnostic equation to compute updraft velocity, closure assumption, and trigger function are developed. These modifications take the vertical gradient of the Exner function perturbation into account, with an on–off coefficient to account for the role of the advective terms. According to the event simulations, the simulated precipitation shows that the modified scheme with the new trigger function gives much better results than the original one. Moreover, the interaction between convection and the larger-scale environment is much stronger near the midtroposphere where the return flow associated with lower-level winter monsoon originates. As a result, the modified scheme produces larger and deeper stratiform clouds and leads to a significant amount of resolvable precipitation. On the contrary, the resolvable precipitation is small when the original scheme is used. The improvement in the simulated precipitation is caused by a more explicit physical mechanism of the new trigger function and suggests that the trigger function needs to be developed along with other components of the scheme, such as closure assumption and cloud model, as a whole. The formalistic inclusion of the advective terms in the new equation gives almost no additional improvement of the simulated precipitation.

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Jimmy O. Adegoke
,
Roger A. Pielke Sr.
,
J. Eastman
,
Rezaul Mahmood
, and
Kenneth G. Hubbard

Abstract

The impact of irrigation on the surface energy budget in the U.S. high plains is investigated. Four 15-day simulations were conducted: one using a 1997 satellite-derived estimate of farmland acreage under irrigation in Nebraska (control run), two using the Olson Global Ecosystem (OGE) vegetation dataset (OGE wet run and OGE dry run), and the fourth with the Kuchler vegetation dataset (natural vegetation run) as lower boundary conditions in the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). In the control and OGE wet simulations, the topsoil in the irrigated locations, up to a depth of 0.2 m, was saturated at 0000 UTC each day for the duration of the experiment (1–15 July 1997). In the other two runs, the soil was allowed to dry out, except when replenished naturally by rainfall. Identical observed atmospheric conditions were used along the lateral boundary in all four cases.

The area-averaged model-derived quantities for the grid centered over Nebraska indicate significant differences in the surface energy fluxes between the control (irrigated) and the “dry” simulations. For example, a 36% increase in the surface latent heat flux and a 2.6°C elevation in dewpoint temperature between the control run and the OGE dry run is shown. Surface sensible heat flux of the control run was 15% less and the near-ground temperature was 1.2°C less compared to the OGE dry run. The differences between the control run and the natural vegetation run were similar but amplified compared to the control run–OGE dry run comparisons.

Results of statistical analyses of long-term (1921–2000) surface temperature data from two sites representing locations of extensive irrigated and nonirrigated land uses appear to support model results presented herein of an irrigation-related cooling in surface temperature. Growing season monthly mean and monthly mean maximum temperature data for the irrigated site indicate a steady decreasing trend in contrast to an increasing trend at the nonirrigated site.

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