Development of a climatology of precipitation system organization in North Carolina to improve climate precipitation forecasts Grant uri icon

abstract

  • Since no major rivers flow into the State of North Carolina, precipitation falling within the state is the primary natural source of water to replenish that region?s rivers, soils, and groundwater reservoirs. As climate and population pressures change, water management and sustainability policies in North Carolina will be increasingly dependent on an improved understanding of precipitation variability in that region. The premise of this study is that a novel climatology of precipitation system mode of delivery in North Carolina, developed with newly available high resolution precipitation and three- dimensional radar reflectivity data sets, will lead to improved regional climate and hydrological forecasts. Mode of delivery refers to the spatial, temporal and water phase characteristics of a precipitation system. Examples of mode of delivery that occur in North Carolina within various synoptic regimes include short duration and spatially heterogeneous convective cells, large mesoscale convective systems, widespread long-lasting frontal precipitation, tropical cyclones, and winter precipitation. Each mode of delivery may produce similar time-averaged precipitation totals, but have very different climate and hydrological impacts. A mode of delivery climatology will provide a unique tool for process-based downscaling of climate simulations. The project will consist of three main parts, as follows. 1) The first part aims to develop and implement a methodology to identify the distinct mode of delivery of rainfall, that will be applied to five years (2006-2010) of the National Mosaic and Multi-sensor Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (NMQ) radar reflectivity and precipitation data sets. We will leverage a partnership between the University of North Carolina Renaissance Computing Institute, and the National Climate Data Center to analyze regional NMQ data sets constructed for this project using data- mining techniques for computational efficiency. 2) The second part of the project will examine the relationship between mode of delivery of rainfall and the dominant regimes of the synoptic-scale flow and intraseasonal-to-interannual climate variability. 3) The third part of this study will test the hypothesis that for seasonal time scales and regional spatial scales, the mode of delivery of rainfall provides a basis for the process-based downscaling (tied to different synoptic regimes) of precipitation in reanalysis products and climate model simulations. The project?s intellectual merit stems from creating the methodology and early results of the seasonal distribution of precipitation system structure in the context of synoptic regimes. These results will have significant implications for climate prediction for a region (North Carolina) where those connections have not been fully explored. The climatology will result in improvements to regional climate model forecasting and with future applications to improve hydrological simulations on the watershed scale. The project team has extensive experience in short and long- term variability of precipitation and regional climate regimes, and will bring this experience together in a novel way. Broader impacts of the project include significant benefits to NOAA and NASA hydrological research and operational programs (NOAA Hydrometeorological Testbed- Southeast and NASA Global Precipitation Mission), and to provide a platform for undergraduate and graduate student research in our new Applied Atmospheric Science degree program at East Carolina University. Project results and outreach will benefit the agricultural communities in eastern North Carolina, which have been historically underserved with respect to educational and economic opportunities, while at the same time have been vulnerable to severe weather and flood-related hazards. The success of this project will motivate a future extension
  • This unsolicited proposal was funded by the National Science Foundation's Physical and Dynamic Meteorology Program.Project Summary:Since no major rivers flow into the State of North Carolina, precipitation falling within the state is the primary natural source of water to replenish that region's rivers, soils, and groundwater reservoirs. Water management and sustainability in North Carolina are therefore inevitably linked to the horizontal and temporal variability of rainfall, an issue that is not yet well understood for that region.The premise of this study is that a climatology of precipitation system organization, duration and rainfall in North Carolina, using newly available high resolution precipitation and three-dimensional radar reflectivity mosaics, will improve our understanding of regional and seasonal hydrology in a variety of synoptic weather regimes. The organization, duration, and rainfall totals of precipitating systems can vary widely for a given time-averaged rain rate depending on the mode of delivery of rainfall. Examples of mode of delivery that occur in North Carolina include short duration and spatially heterogeneous isolated convective cells, large mesoscale convective systems, widespread long-lasting frontal precipitation, tropical cyclones, and winter precipitation. This demonstration project will integrate climate, hydrological, and societal aspects of water availability and management in North Carolina.

date/time interval

  • June 2011 - July 2016