Insights into Convective-scale Predictability in East China: Error Growth Dynamics and Associated Impact on Precipitation of Warm-Season Convective Events

This study investigated the regime-dependent predictability using convective-scale ensemble forecasts initialized with different initial condition perturbations in the Yangtze and Huai River basin(YHRB)of East China.The scale-dependent error growth(ensemble variability)and associated impact on precipitation forecasts(precipitation uncertainties)were quantitatively explored for 13 warm-season convective events that were categorized in terms of strong forcing and weak forcing.The forecast error growth in the strong-forcing regime shows a stepwise increase with increasing spatial scale,while the error growth shows a larger temporal variability with an afternoon peak appearing at smaller scales under weak forcing.This leads to the dissimilarity of precipitation uncertainty and shows a strong correlation between error growth and precipitation across spatial scales.The lateral boundary condition errors exert a quasi-linear increase on error growth with time at the larger scale,suggesting that the large-scale flow could govern the magnitude of error growth and associated precipitation uncertainties,especially for the strong-forcing regime.Further comparisons between scale-based initial error sensitivity experiments show evident scale interaction including upscale transfer of small-scale errors and downscale cascade of larger-scale errors.Specifically,small-scale errors are found to be more sensitive in the weak-forcing regime than those under strong forcing.Meanwhile,larger-scale initial errors are responsible for the error growth after 4 h and produce the precipitation uncertainties at the meso-β-scale.Consequently,these results can be used to explain underdispersion issues in convective-scale ensemble forecasts and provide feedback for ensemble design over the YHRB.

Aerosol Data Assimilation Using Data from Fengyun-3A and MODIS:Application to a Dust Storm over East Asia in 2011

Aerosol optical depth （AOD） is the most basic paxalneter that describes the optical properties of atmospheric aerosols, and it can be used to indicate aerosol content. In this study, we assimilated AOD data from the Fengyun-3A （FY-3A） and MODIS meteorological satellite using the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation three-dimensional variational data assimilation system. Experiments were conducted for a dust storm over East Asia in April 2011. Each 0600 UTC analysis initialized a 24-h Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry model forecast. The results generally showed that the assimilation of satellite AOD observational data can significantly improve model aerosol mass prediction skills. The AOD distribution of the analysis field was closer to the observations of the satellite after assimilation of satellite AOD data. In addition, the analysis resulting from the experiment assimilating both FY-3A/MERSI （Medium-resolution Spectral Imager） AOD data and MODIS AOD data had closer agreement with the ground-based values than the individual assimilation of the two datasets for the dust storm over East Asia. These results suggest that the Chinese FY-3A satellite aerosol products can be effectively applied to numerical models and dust weather analysis.

Variational Assimilation of Satellite Cloud Water/Ice Path and Microphysics Scheme Sensitivity to the Assimilation of a Rainfall Case

Hydrometeor variables （cloud water and cloud ice mixing ratios） are added into the WRF three-dimensional variational assimilation system as additional control variables to directly analyze hydrometeors by assimilating cloud observations. In addition, the background error covariance matrix of hydrometeors is modeled through a control variable transform, and its characteristics discussed in detail. A suite of experiments using four microphysics schemes （LIN, SBU-YLIN, WDM6 and WSM6） are performed with and without assimilating satellite cloud liquid/ice water path. We find analysis of hydrometeors with cloud assimilation to be significantly improved, and the increment and distribution of hydrometeors are consistent with the characteristics of background error covariance. Diagnostic results suggest that the forecast with cloud assimilation represents a significant improvement, especially the ability to forecast precipitation in the first seven hours. It is also found that the largest improvement occurs in the experiment using the WDM6 scheme, since the assimilated cloud information can sustain for longer in this scheme. The least improvement, meanwhile, appears in the experiment using the SBU-YLIN scheme.

A Relocation-based Initialization Scheme to Improve Track-forecasting of Tropical Cyclones

A relocation procedure to initialize tropical cyclones was developed to improve the representation of the initial conditions and the track forecast for Panasonic Weather Solutions Tropical Operational Forecasts. This scheme separates the vortex perturbation and environment field from the first guess, then relocates the initial vortex perturbations to Lhe observed position by merging them with the environment field. The relationships of wind vector components with stream function and velocity potential are used for separating the vortex disturbance from first guess. For the separation of scalars, a low-pass Barnes filter is employed. The irregular-shaped relocation area corresponding to the specific initial conditions is determined by mapping the edge of the vortex radius in 36 directions.Then, the non-vortex perturbations in the relocation area are removed by a two-pass Barnes filter to retain the vortex perturbations, while the variable fields outside the perimeter of the modified vortex are kept ide.ntical to the original first guess. The potential impacts of this scheme on track forecasts were examined for three hurricane cases in the 2011-12 hurricane season. The experimental results demonstrate that the initialization scheme is able to effectively separate the vortex field from the environment field and maintain a relatively balanced and accurate relocated first guess. As the initial track error is reduced, the following track forecasts are considerably improved. The 72-h average track forecast error was redu,~ed by 32.6% for the cold-start cases, and by 38.4% when using the full-cycling data assimilation because of the accumulatedL improvements from the initialization scheme.

Assimilation of GPM Microwave Imager Radiance for Track Prediction of Typhoon Cases with the WRF Hybrid En3DVAR System

The impact of assimilating radiance data from the advanced satellite sensor GMI(GPM microwave imager)for typhoon analyses and forecasts was investigated using both a three-dimensional variational(3DVAR)and a hybrid ensemble-3DVAR method.The interface of assimilating the radiance for the sensor GMI was established in the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF)model.The GMI radiance data are assimilated for Typhoon Matmo(2014),Typhoon Chan-hom(2015),Typhoon Meranti(2016),and Typhoon Mangkhut(2018)in the Pacific before their landing.The results show that after assimilating the GMI radiance data under clear sky condition with the 3DVAR method,the wind,temperature,and humidity fields are effectively adjusted,leading to improved forecast skills of the typhoon track with GMI radiance assimilation.The hybrid DA method is able to further adjust the location of the typhoon systematically.The improvement of the track forecast is even more obvious for later forecast periods.In addition,water vapor and hydrometeors are enhanced to some extent,especially with the hybrid method.

Hybrid Method to Identify Second-trip Echoes Using Phase Modulation and Polarimetric Technology

For pulse Doppler radars,the widely used method for identifying second-trip echoes(STs)in the signal processing level yields significant misidentification in regions of high turbulence and severe wind shear.In the data processing level,although the novel algorithm for ST identification does not yield significant misidentification in specific regions,its overall identification performance is not ideal.Therefore,this paper proposes a hybrid method for the identification of STs using phase modulation(signal processing)and polarimetric technology(data processing).Through this approach,most of the STs are removed,whereas most of the first-trip echoes(FTs)remain untouched.Compared with the existing method using a signal quality index filter with an optimized threshold,the hybrid method exhibits superior performance(Heidke skill scores of 0.98 versus 0.88)on independent test datasets,especially in high-turbulence and severe-wind-shear regions,for which misidentification is significantly reduced.

Assimilation of Doppler Radar Data with an Ensemble 3DEnVar Approach to Improve Convective Forecasting

An ensemble three-dimensional ensemble-variational(3DEnVar)data assimilation(E3DA)system was developed within the Weather Research and Forecasting model’s 3DVar framework to assimilate radar data to improve convective forecasting.In this system,ensemble perturbations are updated by an ensemble of 3DEnVar and the ensemble forecasts are used to generate the flow-dependent background error covariance.The performance of the E3DA system was first evaluated against one experiment without radar DA and one radar DA experiment with 3DVar,using a severe storm case over southeastern China on 5 June 2009.Results indicated that E3DA improved the quantitative forecast skills of reflectivity and precipitation,as well as their spatial distributions in terms of both intensity and coverage over 3DVar.The root-mean-square error of radial velocity from 3DVar was reduced by E3DA,with stronger low-level wind closer to observation.It was also found that E3DA improved the wind,temperature and water vapor mixing ratio,with the lowest errors at the surface and upper levels.3DVar showed moderate improvements in comparison with forecasts without radar DA.A diagnosis of the analysis revealed that E3DA increased vertical velocity,temperature,and humidity corresponding to the added reflectivity,while 3DVar failed to produce these adjustments,because of the lack of reasonable cross-variable correlations.The performance of E3DA was further verified using two convective cases over southern and southeastern China,and the reflectivity forecast skill was also improved over 3DVar.

Relationship between Reduction of Summer Precipitation in North China and Atmospheric Circulation Anomalies

Based on Reanalysis datasets from National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) and summer rainfall datasets from China National Climate Center (NCC), by using trend analysis and composite analysis methods, the relationship between the reduction of summer precipitation in North China and northern hemispheric circulation changes was investigated. The results show that summer rainfall in North China had a significant decreasing tendency, especially true since 1965 in which an abrupt change occurred. The northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation at 500 hPa had a remarkable change after 1965, from outstanding meridional circulation to outstanding zonal circulation, leading to upper trough activity to decrease, resulting in the rainfall weather processes caused by upward motion behind trough significantly to reduce. At 500 hPa in Mongolian region, air temperature decreased, resulting in lower troposphere pressure to increase, leading to low pressure activity significantly to decrease and rainfall weather processes influencing North China to reduce. At the same time, the decreased air temperature in 500 hPa would caused the upper troposphere geopotential height to reduce, resulting in high–altitude jet southerly location, the East Asian summer monsoon to weaken, then it was difficult for water vapor transport to cross the Yangtze River valley and reach the North China region, with a southerly summer monsoon rainfall zone. The summer precipitation reduction in North China had a good correlation with the northern hemispheric circulation changes.

Storm-scale ensemble forecast based on breeding of growth modes

How to obtain fast-growth errors, which is comparable to the actual forecast growth error, is a crucial problem in ensemble forecast （EF）. The method, Breeding of Growth Modes （BGM）, which has been used to generate perturbations for medium-range EF at NCEP, simulates the development of fast-growth errors in the analysis cycle, and is a reasonable choice in capturing growing errors modes, especially for extreme weather by BGM. An ideal supercell storm, simulated by Weather Research Forecast model （WRF）, occurred in central Oklahoma on 20 May 1977. This simulation was used to study the application of BGM methods in the meso-scale strong convective Ensemble Prediction System （EPS）. We compared the forecasting skills of EPS by different pertubation methods, like Monte-Carlo and BGM. The results show that the ensemble average forecast based on Monte-Carlo with statistics meaning is superior to the single-deterministic prediction, but a less dynamic process of the method leads to a smaller spread than expected. The fast-growth errors of BGM are comparable to the actual short-range forecast error and a more appropriate ensemble spread. Considering evaluation indexes and scores, the forecast skills of EPS by BGM is higher than Monte-Carlo＇s. Furthermore, various breeding cycles have different effects on precipitation and non-precipitation fields, confirmation of reasonable cycles need consider balance between variables.