The Mediterranean basin was identified decades ago as a potential hotspot region under global warming, where droughts and floods keep increasing. However, uncertainties about how the water cycle is being affected by the climate change still remain. Henceforth, this study analyses the recent variability of winter precipitation (WP) in Andalusia, the southern Iberian Peninsula (IP), and their relationship

Snow falling into a melting layer will eventually consist of a fraction of meltwater and hence change its characteristics in terms of size, shape, density and fall speed. Most microphysical parameterizations in numerical weather prediction models typically only represent purely solid or liquid hydrometeors. Generally, this has been an acceptable compromise since the melting layer is typically very

The concentration and chemical composition of aerosol particles were measured and sampled at two altitudes of Mt. Tai, North China Plain in May and June 2017. Concentrations of ice nucleating particles (INP) were analyzed with a static vacuum water vapor diffusion chamber (FRIDGE-NUIST) in deposition mode after being sampled using an electrostatic aerosol collector. The average INP concentration (1

In this study, the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry was used to simulate cloud microphysics processes of a mesoscale urban heavy precipitation event over the Pearl River Delta, China. Two intensities of anthropogenic emissions were considered: the E2010 simulation adopted the level and distribution of present-day pollution, while the E1960 simulation adopted the aerosol

A multi-day atmospheric river (AR) in the second week of August 2018 was pivotal in causing extreme precipitation over south-west coast of India that eventually lead to record-breaking floods in the state of Kerala. Integrated water vapor transport (IVT) analysis depicted an intense and long-duration CAT 5 atmospheric river stretching from the Arabian Sea across South India into the Bay of Bengal.

Atmospheric ice nucleating particle (INP) concentration measurements over the Indian region are very sparse; hence more observations are required to represent heterogeneous ice nucleation processes in the regional cloud models for better accuracy. In this work, the INP ability and size of ambient aerosol particles at a tropical high altitude station were studied. Ice nucleation experiments were conducted

Concentrated heavy precipitation has a great potential to cause severe flood disasters, especially in densely populated areas. However, the influencing factors of the spatio-temporal changes of precipitation concentration have not been well understood and the relationship between the characteristics of precipitation concentration and the structure of precipitation has rarely been investigated so far

This paper presents the seasonal mean, rain integral parameters, and gamma parameters at the surface associated with the different precipitating systems over a coastal station Thumba (8.53°N, 76.87°E). The primary datasets consist of Joss-Waldvogel disdrometer (JWD) observations collected during 2007–2015 and 2018 over Thumba. The precipitating cloud systems observed over three seasons (pre-monsoon:

Using the long-term (2005–2019) observations from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) onboard Aqua satellite, the present study delineates the variability of the lower stratospheric ozone (LSO) in the Asian Summer Monsoon Anticyclone (ASMA) region. The climatological features of LSO indicate a peak minimum in the southern flank of ASMA noticed by the geopotential measurements from MLS. Further, the temporal

The characteristics of aerosol methanesulfonic acid (MSA), non-sea-salt sulfate (nss-SO42−) and MSA/nss-SO42− ratio, were measured at high-time resolution (1 h) over the East sea/sea of Japan (R1, 30° - 47°N，121° - 145°E), western North Pacific Ocean (R2, 47° - 58°N，145° - 176°E), subarctic western North Pacific (R3, 58° - 66°N，176°E - 169°W) and Arctic Ocean (R4, 66° - 85°N, 150–174°W) during July–September

Lidar is a powerful active remote sensing technique to monitor the planetary boundary layer (PBL), and there have already been many algorithms to retrieve the planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) using aerosol lidars. However, the algorithm suitable for all atmospheric conditions doesn't exist. This study evaluates the capability of nine lidar algorithms under different pollution scenarios in terms

Satellite data provide crucial information for those places lacking precipitation observations from ground-based sensors, especially over oceans, mountain regions, or developing countries. This is the case over much of South America, including Chile, a country with complex topography that has limited long-term precipitation records and high-elevation data, and no operational weather radars. This study

The aim of this study is to identify the main mesoscale features and mechanisms responsible for the generation of a very intense precipitation and wind storm event, named “Vaia”, that affected the eastern Italian Alps on 27–29 October 2018. The event was characterized by extreme accumulated precipitation (up to 850 mm in three days) and exceptionally strong winds, causing severe and widespread impacts

The influence of aerosol optical depth (AOD) on cloud droplet effective radius (CER) is closely related to the liquid water path (LWP) and the total water vapor (WV) in the atmosphere. From a spatial distribution, the interaction between AOD and CER coincided with the anti-Twomey effect in Shanghai. The high-value locations of both the AOD and CER were consistent, both found in central Shanghai. Based

The northern slopes of Himalaya (NSH) have the highest average elevation in the world. It is difficult to assess how climate change has affected this region because only a few observations are available from the high terrain and harsh environment. This study investigates the long-term characteristics of temperature and precipitation in the NSH. Further, the association of these variations with atmospheric

In order to better understand the effects of ice nucleation on deep convective clouds, two parameterizations that represent the high activation fraction (H-AF case) and low activation fraction (L-AF case) of ice nuclei (IN) are implemented into the Weather Research and forecasting (WRF) model to investigate an extreme real precipitation case. The results indicate that the maximum value of 24-h surface

Water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) is an important component of carbonaceous aerosols. Increasing evidences show that WSOC absorbs and scatters sunlight in the atmosphere, which is one of the key components of climate change. Despite numbers of related studies, understanding of basic characteristics of WSOC is limited at remote region, such as the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau (HTP), one of the remotest

Fine particulate matter samples (PM2.5) were collected from the three megacities of the Yangtze River Delta (i.e., Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Nanjing) during November 11 to December 6, 2016. Organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), and four types of non-polar organic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), n-alkanes, hopanes and steranes were analyzed in the samples. The average

Precipitation outputs from 30 Global Circulation Models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) were evaluated from 1951 to 2014 over six climate zones in arid Central Asia (ACA) using the Climate Research Unit TS 4.04 (CRU) precipitation datasets as reference. An evaluation framework was constructed taking into account metrics of annual precipitation patterns, annual cycle

In this work we study different characteristics of fog long-term persistence, in events with different physical formation mechanisms. Specifically, we focus on the characterization of fog long-term persistence from observational data, by means of a Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) of its associated low-visibility time series. We analyze fog events with radiation and orographic underlying physical

An unprecedented heatwave hit central Europe in June 2019 and set record-breaking high temperatures over approximately one-third areas of Europe. The relative role of dynamics and thermodynamics in anchoring this extreme heatwave is investigated via the flow analogue method. It reveals that dynamical processes contributed to 64.7% of the observed temperature anomalies of the event, and thermodynamical

This investigation is focused on groups of Narrow Bipolar Events (NBEs), defined as NBEs that occurred within 10 km horizontally and ±660 ms of a located, large-amplitude NBE from a dataset of positive NBEs that occurred in Mississippi thunderstorms. In two months only 15 groups were found, with a total of 31 positive and 4 negative NBEs. Each group had 2 to 5 NBEs; four groups had both positive and

Atmospheric electricity has been intensively studied during the last 30 years after the discovery in 1989 of different forms of upper atmospheric electrical discharges (so–called Transient Luminous Events) triggered by lightning in the troposphere. In spite of the significant number of investigations that led to important new results unveiling how lightning produces a zoo of transient electrical discharges

Understanding the mesoscale spatial and temporal variability of precipitation (of the order of 1 to 100 km, and of minutes to hours, respectively) is essential for larger-scale studies, especially in highly heterogeneous areas, such as coastal regions, mountains and urban areas. The adequate capturing of the precipitation patterns in both diagnostic and prognostic terms remains an open challenge. On

The radiative forcing caused by aerosol-cloud interaction (ACI) is one of the most critical factors that lead to climate research uncertainty. In East China and the adjacent sea areas, the severe air pollution makes the ACI effect stronger than in other regions, but few observational studies focus on the effect of different aerosol components. This study estimated the shortwave radiation effect at

Cloud top height (CTH) plays an important role in the Earth's radiation budget and thus in climate change. However, accurate CTH retrieval based on satellite data remains a challenge when using currently widespread methods based on passive remote sensing satellite data, particularly over the Arctic Ocean. It is well known that using geometric correlation between CTH and cloud-shadow distance along

Compared with other arid areas, the convective rainstorm occurs more easily in the east side of the Helan Mountain, which is characterized by the short duration, large intensity, high precipitation efficiency and significant local distribution. In this paper, the 5-min and hourly precipitation at 512 regional automatic weather stations and other high-resolution observation data are used to analyze

Precipitation is a key component of the hydrologic cycle, so the knowledge and comprehension of its processes of formation and evolution are of paramount importance. This study presents an analysis of microphysical data and drop size distributions (DSD) collected with PWS100 optical disdrometers at four sites in Mexico. Bulk parameters (accumulated water and rainfall intensity) estimated from microphysical

This study evaluates the reliability of gridded rainfall products with fine spatial resolution using 29 gauges of a dense observation network in Niger. Four gridded datasets were considered, viz. the African Rainfall Climatology version 2.0 (ARC2), Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS), Climate Prediction Center morphing technique (CMORPH) and Tropical Applications of

Based on the daily data collected from 69 meteorological stations in the Qinling-Daba Mountains (Qinba mountains) and its surrounding areas during 1960–2017. We analyzed The spatiotemporal variations of extreme precipitation events in the Qinba mountains and the relationship between the changes of extreme precipitation indices and potential factors (including geographical factors and atmospheric circulation

Atmospheric downward longwave radiation (DLR) is a key component of the surface energy budget in the Earth system. Satellite retrievals and atmospheric reanalysis estimates are the two typical approaches to obtaining a spatio-temporally continuous DLR product. In this study, we evaluated the DLR product from the latest ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis and the well-known Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy

In the last decade, heavy fog events have been found to last from several days to more than a week and frequently occur in northern China. The mechanism that responsible for the long-lasting heavy fog events has not been fully understood. In this study, the radiative effects of the clouds and fog on two persistent heavy fog events on December 3–6, 2011 (Case-2011) and January 28–31, 2013 (Case-2013)

We analyzed in detail currents associated with upward unconnected leaders (UULs) initiated from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Industrial Area Tower (IAT). Current measurements of UULs in natural lightning are relatively rare and provide important insights into the development and propagation of upward leaders. Eight UULs were initiated from the KSC-IAT between August 1, 2018 and November 15, 2019

Although satellite-based precipitation estimation has extensive application potential, validation of its reliability is challenging for areas lacking ground-based data which is particularly true for many arid and semiarid regions. The triple collocation (TC) method can be used to evaluate three independent inputs with unknown true values, and thus provides an appealing alternative for assessment of

The meteorological conditions in northeast China exhibit particular characteristics associated with snow cover in winter and dramatic land cover transformations. In this study, the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) is used to assess the influences of snow albedo and land cover changes on wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, and planetary boundary layer height (PBLH). Two new static

In the present paper, the climate cooling potential of technical snow making on ski slopes is investigated with regard to radiative forcing. It is well-known, that snow shows a higher degree of reflection compared to other ground surfaces. During snow-poor winters, guaranteeing snow covered ski slopes by using snow making may therefore lead to an increase in the albedo of a mountainous region. Since

This work quantifies the natural ice nuclei particle (INP) concentration activated at temperatures (T) lower than −29 °C in Córdoba, a city located in a semiarid region in the center of Argentina. Laboratory INP concentration measurements were performed in a cloud chamber where water supersaturation was reached by an adiabatic isobaric mixture of two air masses with different relative humidities. Once

At kilometer-scale resolutions, the most energetic turbulent eddies associated with deep moist convection is partially resolved and partially subgrid scale (SGS). Therefore, SGS turbulent fluxes still play an important role in the transport of heat, momentum and other scalars. In contrast to its vertical counterpart, the horizontal SGS turbulent transport is often overlooked due to its relative insignificance

This paper deals with the analysis of the ability of the operational global ensemble prediction system (EPS) at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF, NEPS in predicting the probabilities of the maximum 2 m temperature (TMAX). The mean of the TMAX forecasts from NEPS are bias corrected (1st moment) using the technique of Decaying Average. This method does not lead to any

Glaciochemical records serve as one of the best archives and as good proxies to indicate regional and global anthropogenic influences. The Himalayas, with fragile ecosystems and pristine environments, hold the third largest reservoir of glacier ice and represent an ideal region to investigate trace metal pollution using glacier records. Limited studies on glacially recorded trace metals in the Himalayas

This paper aims to test the ability of the WRF-Chem model to simulate sand storms in Northwest China and improve the simulation results by introducing remote sensing soil moisture data into WRF-Chem. We conducted sensitivity tests, including parameterization scheme tests and soil moisture tests using WRF-Chem. By comparing various combinations of parameterization schemes, which have considerable impacts

The provision of high resolution near real-time rainfall data has made satellite rainfall products very potential for monitoring hydrological hazards. However, a major challenge in their direct-use can be problematic due to measurement error. In this study, an attempt was made to correct the bias of Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation near-real-time (GSMaP_NRT) product. Physical factors, including

Experimental data on precipitation chemistry were collected at a semi-arid savanna in Senegal (Dahra) in 2013, 2014 and 2017. The chemical composition of precipitation was analyzed for inorganic and organic ions, using ionic chromatography. The pH values of precipitation range from 4.50 to 8.50 with 89% of the samples having basic pH. The composition of precipitation was controlled by four source contributions:

PM10 samples were collected in a site of Apulia region (South-East Italy) near a steel plant when the winds were blowing from the NW and the SE to exclude and include, respectively, the contribution of the industrial source in order to study the aerosol particles in detail and attribute them to the most appropriate emission sources. Size, morphology and chemical composition of 6500 individual particles

The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of atmospheric circulation over Central Europe on the long-term variability of relative sunshine duration (RSD) and air temperature in Poland. The analysis of data from 23 stations located in different parts of the country has made it possible to indicate to what extent the trends of these two climate elements are related to atmospheric circulation

This global study analyzes how the total column water vapor (in terms of precipitable water, PW) is related to the attenuation of shortwave solar radiation (SWR) using data from the MERRA-2 reanalysis during 2000–2014 and SWR simulations obtained with the REST2 clear-sky radiation model. The water vapor radiative effect (WVRE) on SWR attenuation is investigated by comparing the clear-sky SWR predictions

The impact of assimilating radiances from the global satellite precipitation program (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI) on the track prediction of typhoon Chan-hom was studied with a hybrid three-dimensional ensemble-variational (3DEnVar) data assimilation (DA) system. It is found that the data assimilation of clear-sky GMI radiance is able to depict the structure of typhoon well by warming the typhoon inner

Recent ceilometer models are more sensitive to aerosols, which is increasing the interest in these instruments to retrieve aerosol optical and microphysical properties. In this paper, a new methodology is proposed to retrieve aerosol vertical extinction and backscatter profiles from a Vaisala ceilometer CL51 model. This methodology is based in two parts: first, a signal pre-processing with a suppression

The quantitative and qualitative characterization of ions and inorganic nitrogen in precipitation assists in understanding the accompanying sources and chemistry of regional precipitation. A total of 212 event-based precipitation samples were collected from four sites in Bangladesh in 2017 to investigate the physicochemical characteristics, sources, and deposition of atmospheric ionic constituents

The characteristics of temperature inversion (TI) are believed to be dependent on topographical features and synoptic regime. Western Ghats (WGs) mountains located in the west coast of India have a complex topography, and the TI features for this region remain unknown due to the complexity and non-availability of observational datasets. This study investigates TI characteristics in the troposphere

Extreme high-temperature events pose a threat to human beings on Earth. In coastal cities, the sea breeze is widely known as a prevailing wind that can cool the near-surface air. However, the cumulative cooling effect and its attenuation process during the sea breeze penetration have not been well investigated. In this study, we analyze sea breeze cooling capacity (SBCC) and propose a new method in