Domenico Cimini

HyMeX-SOP1: The Field Campaign Dedicated to Heavy Precipitation and Flash Flooding in the Northwestern Mediterranean

The Mediterranean region is frequently affected by heavy precipitation events associated with flash floods, landslides, and mudslides that cause hundreds of millions of euros in damages per year and often, casualties. A major field campaign was devoted to heavy precipitation and flash floods from 5 September to 6 November 2012 within the framework of the 10-year international HyMeX (Hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment) dedicated to the hydrological cycle and related high-impact events. The 2- month field campaign took place over the Northwestern Mediterranean Sea and its surrounding coastal regions in France, Italy, and Spain. The observation strategy of the field experiment was devised to improve our knowledge on the following key components leading to heavy precipitation and flash flooding in the region: i) the marine atmospheric flows that transport moist and conditionally unstable air towards the coasts; ii) the Mediterranean Sea acting as a moisture and energy source; iii) the dynamics and microphysics of the convective systems producing heavy precipitation; iv) the hydrological processes during flash floods. This article provides the rationale for developing this first HyMeX field experiment and an overview of its design and execution. Highlights of some Intense Observation Periods illustrate the potential of the unique datasets collected for process understanding, model improvement and data assimilation.

Temperature and humidity profile retrievals from ground-based microwave radiometers during TUC

Thermodynamic atmospheric profiles have been retrieved from ground-based microwave radiometers during the Temperature, hUmidity, and Cloud (TUC) profiling campaign. A variety of inversion methods is presented, in terms of requirements, advantages, and limitations. Results confirm the theoretical expectation that retrievals’ accuracy and resolution degrade steadily with height up to 3 km, then more rapidly. At higher levels the retrievals’ accuracy does not improve on that of a Numerical Weather Prediction model, which provides a background for the variational technique. Most retrieval methods produce a bias in the temperature profile above 1 km, which may be due to a bias in the absorption model used and/or observations at 51–54 GHz. Elevation scanning is shown to improve the accuracy and resolution of the retrievals in the boundary layer, but is limited by technical shortcomings. Zusammenfassung Thermodynamische atmospharische Profile wurden mit bodengestutzten Mikrowellenradiometern wahrend der Temperature, hUmidity, and Cloud (TUC) profiling Kampagne gemessen. Verschiedene Inversionsmethoden werden in Bezug auf Anforderungen, Vorteile und Einschrankungen vorgestellt. Die Resultate bestatigen die theoretische Erwartung, dass die Genauigkeit und die Auflosung der gemessenen Profile kontinuierlich bis 3 km Hohe schwach und daruber starker abnehmen. In den hoheren Schichten ist die Genauigkeit der Profile nicht besser als die des numerischen Wettervorhersagemodells, das die Hintergrundfelder fur das erorterte Variationsverfahren bereitstellt. Die meisten Inversionsmethoden fuhren zu systematischen Fehlern in den gemessenen Profilen oberhalb von 1 km, was auf systematische Fehler im verwendeten Absorptionsmodell und/oder bei der Messung der Helligkeitstemperatur zwischen 51 und 54 GHz hindeutet. Die zusatzliche Einbeziehung von Messungen unterschiedlicher Elevationswinkel verbessern die Genauigkeit und die Auflosung der abgeleiteten Profile in der planetaren Grenzschicht, wobei die Vorteile durch technische Unzulanglichkeiten eingeschrankt sind.

Multivariate statistical integration of Satellite infrared and microwave radiometric measurements for rainfall retrieval at the geostationary scale

The objective of this paper is to investigate how the complementarity between low earth orbit (LEO) microwave (MW) and geostationary earth orbit (GEO) infrared (IR) radiometric measurements can be exploited for satellite rainfall detection and estimation. Rainfall retrieval is pursued at the space-time scale of typical geostationary observations, that is at a spatial resolution of few kilometers and a repetition period of few tens of minutes. The basic idea behind the investigated statistical integration methods follows an established approach consisting in using the satellite MW-based rain-rate estimates, assumed to be accurate enough, to calibrate spaceborne IR measurements on sufficiently limited subregions and time windows. The proposed methodologies are focused on new statistical approaches, namely the multivariate probability matching (MPM) and variance-constrained multiple regression (VMR). The MPM and VMR methods are rigorously formulated and systematically analyzed in terms of relative detection and estimation accuracy and computing efficiency. In order to demonstrate the potentiality of the proposed MW-IR combined rainfall algorithm (MICRA), three case studies are discussed, two on a global scale on November 1999 and 2000 and one over the Mediterranean area. A comprehensive set of statistical parameters for detection and estimation assessment is introduced to evaluate the error budget. For a comparative evaluation, the analysis of these case studies has been extended to similar techniques available in literature.

Thermodynamic Atmospheric Profiling During the 2010 Winter Olympics Using Ground-Based Microwave Radiometry

Ground-based microwave radiometer profilers in the 20-60-GHz range operate continuously at numerous sites in different climate regions. Recent work suggests that a 1-D variational (1-DVAR) technique, coupling radiometric observations with outputs from a numerical weather prediction model, may outperform traditional retrieval methods for temperature and humidity profiling. The 1-DVAR technique is applied here to observations from a commercially available microwave radiometer deployed at Whistler, British Columbia, which was operated by Environment Canada to support nowcasting and short-term weather forecasting during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The analysis period included rain, sleet, and snow events (~235-mm total accumulation and rates up to 18 mm/h). The 1-DVAR method is applied “quasi-operationally,” i.e., as it could have been applied in real time, as no data were culled. The 1-DVAR-achieved accuracy has been evaluated by using simultaneous radiosonde and ceilometer observations as reference. For atmospheric profiling from the surface to 10 km, we obtain retrieval errors within 1.5 K for temperature and 0.5 g/m3 for water vapor density. The retrieval accuracy for column-integrated water vapor is 0.8 kg\m2, with small bias (-0.1 kg\m2) and excellent correlation (0.96). The retrieval of cloud properties shows a high probability of detection of cloud/no cloud (0.8/0.9, respectively), low false-alarm ratio (0.1), and cloud-base height estimate error within ~0.60 km.

Ground-Based Passive Microwave Profiling during Dynamic Weather Conditions

Abstract Short-period (1–5 min) temperature and humidity soundings up to 10-km height are retrieved from ground-based 12-channel microwave radiometer profiler (MWRP) observations. In contrast to radiosondes, the radiometric retrievals provide very high temporal resolution (1 min or less) of thermodynamic profiles, but the vertical resolution, which declines in proportion to the height above ground level, is lower. The high temporal resolution is able to resolve detailed meso-γ-scale thermodynamic and limited microphysical features of various rapidly changing mesoscale and/or hazardous weather phenomena. To illustrate the MWRP capabilities and potential benefits to research and operational activities, the authors present example radiometric retrievals from a variety of dynamic weather phenomena including upslope supercooled fog, snowfall, a complex cold front, a nocturnal bore, and a squall line accompanied by a wake low and other rapid variations in low-level water vapor and temperature.

Ground-Based Millimeter- and Submillimeter-Wave Observations of Low Vapor and Liquid Water Contents

Ground-based observations at millimeter (mm) and submillimeter (submm) wavelengths were collected at the atmospheric radiation measurement program site at Barrow, AK, during the Arctic winter by a new 25-channel radiometer. A weighting function analysis is presented to demonstrate the enhanced sensitivity of mm- and submm-wave (50-400 GHz) radiometers to low vapor and liquid water contents with respect to conventional instruments such as the ones operating at centimeter (cm) wavelengths (20-30 GHz). In addition, based on measurements, we carried out a quantitative analysis of mm- and submm-wavelength sensitivity, yielding improvement factors from 1.5 to 69 for precipitable water vapor (PWV) and 3 to 4 for liquid water path (LWP) when compared to 20-30 GHz radiometers. Furthermore, using a simulated data set, we evaluate the effect of hydrometeor scattering: given the conditions occurring during the experiment, the scattering contribution is within the instrumental noise for most, but not all, of the considered channels. With the same data set, we demonstrate that in the dry conditions of the Arctic, a simple linear regression yields satisfactory results when applied on selected mm- and submm-wave channels. For a dual-channel combination, the expected accuracy is ~0.23 (0.007) mm for PWV (LWP), when using mm- and submm-wavelengths, whereas it is 0.37 (0.012) mm using cm-wave channels. When the retrieval is applied to real observations, the accuracy is found in agreement with theoretical expectations.

Radiosonde Humidity Soundings and Microwave Radiometers during Nauru99

During June‐July 1999, the NOAA R/V Ron H. Brown(RHB) sailed from Australia to the Republic of Nauru where the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program operates a long-term climate observing station. During July, when the RHB was in close proximity to the island of Nauru, detailed comparisons of ship- and island-based instruments were possible. Essentially identical instruments were operated from the ship and the island’s Atmospheric Radiation and Cloud Station (ARCS)-2. These instruments included simultaneously launched Vaisala RS80-H radiosondes, the Environmental Technology Laboratory’s (ETL) Fourier transform infrared radiometer (FTIR), and ARM’s atmospheric emitted radiance interferometer (AERI), as well as cloud radars/ceilometers to identify clear conditions. The ARM microwave radiometer (MWR) operating on Nauru provided another excellent dataset for the entire Nauru99 experiment. The calibration accuracy was verified by a liquid nitrogen blackbody target experiment and by consistent high quality tipping calibrations throughout the experiment. Comparisons were made for calculated clear-sky brightness temperature (Tb) and for precipitable water vapor (PWV). These results indicate that substantial errors, sometimes of the order of 20% in PWV, occurred with the original radiosondes. When a Vaisala correction algorithm was applied, calculated Tbs were in better agreement with the MWR than were the calculations based on the original data. However, the improvement in Tb comparisons was noticeably different for different radiosonde lots and was not a monotonic function of radiosonde age. Three different absorption algorithms were compared: Liebe and Layton, Liebe et al., and Rosenkranz. Using AERI spectral radiance observations as a comparison standard, scaling of radiosondes by MWR data was compared with both original and corrected soundings.

Measurement of Low Amounts of Precipitable Water Vapor Using Ground-Based Millimeterwave Radiometry

Abstract Extremely dry conditions characterized by amounts of precipitable water vapor (PWV) as low as 1–2 mm commonly occur in high-latitude regions during the winter months. While such dry atmospheres carry only a few percent of the latent heat energy compared to tropical atmospheres, the effects of low vapor amounts on the polar radiation budget—both directly through modulation of longwave radiation and indirectly through the formation of clouds—are considerable. Accurate measurements of PWV during such dry conditions are needed to improve polar radiation models for use in understanding and predicting change in the climatically sensitive polar regions. To this end, the strong water-vapor absorption line at 183.310 GHz provides a unique means of measuring low amounts of PWV. Weighting function analysis, forward model calculations based upon a 7-yr radiosonde dataset, and retrieval simulations consistently predict that radiometric measurements made using several millimeter-wavelength (MMW) channels near ...

Reference Upper-Air Observations for Climate: From Concept to Reality

AbstractThe three main objectives of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN) are to provide long-term high-quality climate records of vertical profiles of selected essential climate variables (ECVs), to constrain and calibrate data from more spatially comprehensive global networks, and to provide measurements for process studies that permit an in-depth understanding of the properties of the atmospheric column. In the five years since the first GRUAN implementation and coordination meeting and the printing of an article (Seidel et al.) in this publication, GRUAN has matured to become a functioning network that provides reference-quality observations to a community of users.This article describes the achievements within GRUAN over the past five years toward making reference-quality observations of upper-air ECVs. Milestones in the evolution of GRUAN are emphasized, including development of rigorous criteria for site certification and assessment, the formal certificatio...

Temperature and Humidity Profiling in the Arctic Using Ground-Based Millimeter-Wave Radiometry and 1DVAR

A 1-D variational (1DVAR) retrieval technique has been developed for obtaining temperature and humidity profiles from observations of the Ground-Based Scanning Radiometer (GSR) operating at millimeter-wavelengths. The GSR was deployed in two Arctic experiments held at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program in Barrow, Alaska. Temperature and humidity profiles retrieved with the 1DVAR technique are compared with simultaneous radiosonde observations (RAOBs) during the Radiative Heating in Underexplored Bands Campaign (February-March 2007). Examples and statistical results are presented and discussed to demonstrate the achieved retrieval accuracy and vertical resolution. The 1DVAR retrievals based on GSR observations improve the NWP background up to 5 km, particularly in the lower 3 km. The present implementation achieved an root-mean-square (rms) error with respect to RAOB within 1.5 K for temperature and 0.10 g/kg for humidity profiles of up to 5 km in height, with 2.9 and 2.0 degrees of freedom for signal, respectively. Using the interlevel covariance definition of the vertical resolution, the 1DVAR retrievals showed a < 1-km vertical resolution of up to 5 km for both temperature and humidity profiles. The integrated water vapor obtained from the retrieved humidity profiles showed an rms accuracy within 0.10 kg/m2 , with small bias (< 0.01 kg/m2) and excellent correlation (0.96).