Projects per year
Abstract
Precipitation efficiency refers to the fraction of condensate in the atmosphere that reaches the surface as precipitation. A high-quality data set of radar-estimated precipitation rates and convective scale vertical velocity near Darwin, Australia, is used to construct the first estimate of precipitation efficiency at convective scales for a long record of observations in the tropics. It is found that precipitation efficiency increases with precipitation rate and midtropospheric humidity and decreases with increasing convective available potential energy and surface temperature. Precipitation efficiency is largest under moist monsoonal conditions and smallest during monsoon break periods, which are characterized by a drier free troposphere. However, these differences in efficiency do not translate to differences in the instantaneous precipitation rate across the synoptic regimes because of a compensating change in the net condensation rate. This is driven by variations in cloud updraft velocity, which is larger in drier environments than in moist environments.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 13574–13583 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 22 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Nov 2019 |
Keywords
- convection
- extremes
- observations
- precipitation efficiency
- rainfall
- tropics
Projects
- 1 Active
-
ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes
Pitman, A. J., Jakob, C., Alexander, L., Reeder, M., Roderick, M., England, M. H., Abramowitz, G., Abram, N., Arblaster, J., Bindoff, N. L., Dommenget, D., Evans, J. P., Hogg, A. M., Holbrook, N. J., Karoly, D. J., Lane, T. P., Sherwood, S. C., Strutton, P., Ebert, E., Hendon, H., Hirst, A. C., Marsland, S., Matear, R., Protat, A., Wang, Y., Wheeler, M. C., Best, M. J., Brody, S., Grabowski, W., Griffies, S., Gruber, N., Gupta, H., Hallberg, R., Hohenegger, C., Knutti, R., Meehl, G. A., Milton, S., de Noblet-Ducoudre, N., Or, D., Petch, J., Peters-Lidard, C., Overpeck, J., Russell, J., Santanello, J., Seneviratne, S. I., Stephens, G., Stevens, B. & Stott, P. A.
Monash University – Internal University Contribution, Monash University – Internal School Contribution, Monash University – Internal Faculty Contribution, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australian National University (ANU), University of Melbourne, University of Tasmania, Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) (Australia), Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) (New South Wales)
1/01/17 → 31/12/24
Project: Research