The spatial extent of rainfall events and its relation to precipitation scaling

The spatial extent of rainfall events and its relation to precipitation scaling

Lochbihler, K.U. (TU Delft Atmospheric Remote Sensing; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))
Lenderink, G. (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))
Siebesma, A.P. (TU Delft Atmospheric Physics; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))

2017-08-28

Observations show that subdaily precipitation extremes increase with dew point temperature at a rate exceeding the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relation. The understanding of this so-called super CC scaling is still incomplete, and observations of convective cell properties could provide important information. Here the size and intensity of rain cells are investigated by using a tracking of rainfall events in high-resolution radar data. Higher intensities are accompanied by larger rainfall areas. However, whereas small rain cells mainly follow CC scaling, larger cells display super CC behavior. Even more, for dew point exceeding 15°C, the rain cell size has to increase in order to sustain super CC scaling and a remarked increase in rain cell area is found. Our results imply that the source area of moisture, the cloud size, and the degree of mesoscale organization play key roles in the context of a warming climate.

extreme precipitation
rain cell tracking
super CC scaling

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ca03b6f2-94ed-4e8f-99bd-ed4be5d830c9

https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074857

2018-02-20

0094-8276

Geophysical Research Letters, 44 (16), 8629-8636

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2017 K.U. Lochbihler, G. Lenderink, A.P. Siebesma