A comparison of summer precipitation structures over the South China Sea and the East China Sea based on tropical rainfall measurement mission

The three-dimensional structures of summer precipitation over the South China Sea （SCS） and the East China Sea （ECS） are investigated based on tropical rainfall measurement mission （TRMM）. The primary results are as follows. First, both the convective and stratiform precipitation rates in the SCS are much higher than those of the ECS. The contribution of the convective cloud precipitation to the surface precipitation is primarily over the SCS and the ECS with a proportion of about 70%, but the contribution of convective cloud precipitation is slightly larger in the SCS than the ECS. The contribution of stratus precipitation is slightly larger in the ECS than that in the SCS. Second, the content of cloud particles and precipitation particles in the ECS in June was greater than that in the SCS, while in July and August, the content of cloud and precipitation particles in the ECS was less than that in the SCS. Third, the latent heat profile of the ECS is quite different from that of the SCS. In June, the peak values of evaporation and condensation latent heating rates in the ECS are greater than those in the SCS. In July and August, however, the peak values of evaporation and condensation latent heating rates in the ECS are about 0.05°/h less than those in the SCS.

Boreal Winter Rainfall Anomaly over the Tropical Indo-Pacific and Its Effect on Northern Hemisphere Atmospheric Circulation in CMIP5 Models

Experimental outputs of 11 Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project （AMIP） models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project （CMIP5） are analyzed to assess the atmospheric circulation anomaly over Northern Hemisphere induced by the anomalous rainfall over tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean during boreal winter.The analysis shows that the main features of the interannual variation of tropical rainfall anomalies,especially over the Central Pacific （CP） （5°S-5°N,175°E-135°W） and Indo-western Pacific （IWP） （20°S-20°N,110°-150°E） are well captured in all the CMIP5/AMIP models.For the IWP and western Indian Ocean （WIO） （10°S-10°N,45°-75°E）,the anomalous rainfall is weaker in the 11 CMIP5/AMIP models than in the observation.During El Ni（n）o/La Ni（n）a mature phases in boreal winter,consistent with observations,there are geopotential height anomalies known as the Pacific North American （PNA） pattern and Indo-western Pacific and East Asia （IWPEA） pattern in the upper troposphere,and the northwestern Pacific anticyclone （cyclone） （NWPA） in the lower troposphere in the models.Comparison between the models and observations shows that the ability to simulate the PNA and NWPA pattern depends on the ability to simulate the anomalous rainfall over the CP,while the ability to simulate the IWPEA pattern is related to the ability to simulate the rainfall anomaly in the IWP and WIO,as the SST anomaly is same in AMIP experiments.It is found that the tropical rainfall anomaly is important in modeling the impact of the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean on the extratropical atmospheric circulation anomaly.

Thermal aspect of the diurnal variation of tropical convective and stratiform rainfall

The diurnal variation of radiation plays a key role in determining the diurnal variations of tropical oceanic con- vective and stratiform rainfall, and the examination of such a relationship requires a direct link between the radiation term in a heat budget and the surface rain rate in a cloud budget. Thus, the thermally related surface rainfall budgets derived from the combination of cloud and heat budgets are analysed with two-dimensional equilibrium cloud-resolving model simulation data to study the effects of sea surface temperature （SST） and cloud radiative, and microphysical processes on the diurnal variations of convective and stratiform rainfall. The results show that the increase in SST, the inclusion of diurnal variation of SST and the exclusion of cloud radiative processes increase negative diurnal anomalies of heat divergence over rainfall-free regions during the nighttime through changing the vertical structures of diurnal anomaly of radiation in the troposphere. The strengthened negative diurnal anomalies of heat divergence over rainfall- free regions enhance positive diurnal anomalies of heat divergence over convective regions, which intensifies the positive diurnal anomaly of convective rainfall. The exclusion of microphysical effects of ice clouds increases the negative diurnal anomaly of heat divergence over rainfall-free regions during the nighttime through reducing latent heat; this appears to enhance the positive diurnal anomaly of heat divergence over raining stratiform regions, and thus stratiform rMnfall.

Hydrological assessment of TRMM rainfall data over Yangtze River Basin

High-quality rainfall information is critical for accurate simulation of runoff and water cycle processes on the land surface. In situ monitoring of rainfall has a very limited utility at the regional and global scale because of the high temporal and spatial variability of rainfall. As a step toward overcoming this problem, microwave remote sensing observations can be used to retrieve the temporal and spatial rainfall coverage because of their global availability and frequency of measurement. This paper addresses the question of whether remote sensing rainfall estimates over a catchment can be used for water balance computations in the distributed hydrological model. The TRMM 3B42V6 rainfall product was introduced into the hydrological cycle simulation of the Yangtze River Basin in South China. A tool was developed to interpolate the rain gauge observations at the same temporal and spatial resolution as the TRMM data and then evaluate the precision of TRMM 3B42V6 data from 1998 to 2006. It shows that the TRMM 3B42V6 rainfall product was reliable and had good precision in application to the Yangtze River Basin. The TRMM 3B42V6 data slightly overestimated rainfall during the wet season and underestimated rainfall during the dry season in the Yangtze River Basin. Results suggest that the TRMM 3B42V6 rainfall product can be used as an alternative data source for large-scale distributed hydrological models.

Comparison of TMI and AMSR-E sea surface temperatures with Argo near-surface temperatures over the global oceans

Satellite-derived sea surface temperatures（SSTs） from the tropical rainfall measuring mission（TRMM）microwave imager（TMI） and the advanced microwave scanning radiometer for the earth observing system（AMSR-E） were compared with non-pumped near-surface temperatures（NSTs） obtained from Argo profiling floats over the global oceans. Factors that might cause temperature differences were examined, including wind speed, columnar water vapor, liquid cloud water, and geographic location. The results show that both TMI and AMSR-E SSTs are highly correlated with the Argo NSTs; however, at low wind speeds, they are on average warmer than the Argo NSTs. The TMI performs slightly better than the AMSR-E at low wind speeds, whereas the TMI SST retrievals might be poorly calibrated at high wind speeds. The temperature differences indicate a warm bias of the TMI/AMSR-E when columnar water vapor is low, which can indicate that neither TMI nor AMSR-E SSTs are well calibrated at high latitudes. The SST in the Kuroshio Extension region has higher variability than in the Kuroshio region. The variability of the temperature difference between the satellite-retrieved SSTs and the Argo NSTs is lower in the Kuroshio Extension during spring. At low wind speeds, neither TMI nor AMSR-E SSTs are well calibrated, although the TMI performs better than the AMSR-E.

Water storage changes and balances in Africa observed by GRACE and hydrologic models

Continental water storage plays a major role in Earth＇s climate system. However, temporal and spatial variations of continental water are poorly known, particularly in Africa. Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment （GRACE） satellite mission provides an opportunity to estimate terrestrial water storage （TWS） variations at both continental and river-basin scales. In this paper, seasonal and secular variations of TWS within Africa for the period from January 2003 to July 2013 are assessed using monthly GRACE coefficients from three processing centers （Centre for Space Research, the German Research Centre for Geo- sciences, and NASA＇s Jet Propulsion Laboratory）. Monthly grids from Global Land Data Assimilation System （GLDAS）-I and from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission （TRMM）- 3B43 models are also used in order to understand the reasons of increasing or decreasing water storage. Results from GRACE processing centers show similar TWS estimates at seasonal timescales with some differences concerning inter-annual trend variations. The largest annual signals of GRACE TWS are observed in Zambezi and Okavango River basins and in Volta River Basin. An increasing trend of 11.60 mm/a is found in Zambezi River Basin and of 9 mm/a in Volta River Basin. A phase shift is found between rainfall and GRACE TWS （GRACE TWS is preceded by rainfall} by 2-3 months in parts of south central Africa. Comparing GLDAS rainfall with TRMM model, it is found that GLDAS has a dry bias from TRMM model.

Evaluation of Precipitation Datasets from TRMM Satellite and Down-scaled Reanalysis Products with Bias-correction in Middle Qilian Mountain,China

Accurate estimates of precipitation are fundamental for hydrometeorological and ecohydrological studies,but are more difficult in high mountainous areas because of the high elevation and complex terrain.This study compares and evaluates two kinds of precipitation datasets,the reanalysis product downscaled by the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF)output,and the satellite product,the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission(TRMM)Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis(TMPA)product,as well as their bias-corrected datasets in the Middle Qilian Mountain in Northwest China.Results show that the WRF output with finer resolution perfonns well in both estimating precipitation and hydrological simulation,while the TMPA product is unreliable in high mountainous areas.Moreover,bias-corrected WRF output also performs better than bias-corrected TMPA product.Combined with the previous studies,atmospheric reanalysis datasets are more suitable than the satellite products in high mountainous areas.Climate is more important than altitude for the\falseAlarms'events of the TRMM product.Designed to focus on the tropical areas,the TMPA product mistakes certain meteorological situations for precipitation in subhumid and semiarid areas,thus causing significant"falseAlarms"events and leading to significant overestimations and unreliable performance.Simple linear bias correction method,only removing systematical errors,can significantly improves the accuracy of both the WRF output and the TMPA product in arid high mountainous areas with data scarcity.Evaluated by hydrological simulations,the bias-corrected WRF output is more reliable than the gauge dataset.Thus,data merging of the WRF output and gauge observations would provide more reliable precipitation estimations in arid high mountainous areas.

Evaluating a satellite-based sea surface temperature by shipboard survey in the Northwest Indian Ocean

A summer-time shipboard meteorological survey is described in the Northwest Indian Ocean. Shipboard observations are used to evaluate a satellite-based sea surface temperature（SST）, and then find the main factors that are highly correlated with errors. Two satellite data, the first is remote sensing product of a microwave, which is a Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Imager（TMI）, and the second is merged data from the microwave and infrared satellite as well as drifter observations, which is Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice Analysis（OSTIA）. The results reveal that the daily mean SST of merged data has much lower bias and root mean square error as compared with that from microwave products. Therefore the results support the necessary of the merging infrared and drifter SST with a microwave satellite for improving the quality of the SST. Furthermore, the correlation coefficient between an SST error and meteorological parameters, which include a wind speed, an air temperature, a relative humidity, an air pressure, and a visibility. The results show that the wind speed has the largest correlation coefficient with the TMI SST error. However, the air temperature is the most important factor to the OSTIA SST error. Meanwhile,the relative humidity shows the high correlation with the SST error for the OSTIA product.

Evaluation of the WRF Weather Forecasts over the Southern Region of Brazil

The data assimilation technique, known as 3DVAR, of the WRF mesoscale modeling system has been used in order to perform the impact analysis of meteorological data assimilation in the weather forecasts over the Rio Grande do Sul State in Brazil. The consistency of the data assimilation has been analyzed by investigating and evaluating the model forecast results processed with and without data assimilations. Two different procedures of data assimilation have been conducted to perform the study. The forecasts of the accumulated rainfall model variable, spatially plotted over the model integration domains, have been compared and validated against the Tropical Rain Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite based data, as well as with the Canguçu city meteorological radar reflectivity data. The comparison has been made considering the total amount of the accumulated rainfall predicted by the model against the automatic weather station data and most of the conducted processing presented compatible results. It has also been observed that, the inclusion of assimilated data enabled an improvement in the intensity as well as in the location of the main convective cell. The radar reflectivity field showed a significant performance in all processed experiments with data assimilation. However, for some regions, more significant obtained results have been shown to be the case in which the spectral radiances were assimilated, as compared with the case in which the spectral radiances were not included. The evaluation of the vertical atmospheric profiles of temperature and dew point temperature showed only a small impact of data assimilation. However, both simulations coherently presented the two vertical profiles, when compared with the observed profiles. In short, the study shows that, although the forecasts presented some inconsistencies in the evaluated results, the 3DVAR assimilation improves significantly the forecasting of the Weather WRF model.

Fundamental Characteristics of Tropical Rain Cell Structures as Measured by TRMM PR

Rain cells are the most elementary unit of precipitation system in nature.In this study,fundamental geometric and physical characteristics of rain cells over tropical land and ocean areas are investigated by using 15-yr measurements of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission(TRMM)Precipitation Radar(PR).The rain cells are identified with a minimum bounding rectangle(MBR)method.The results indicate that about 50%of rain cells occur at length of about 20 km and width of 15 km.The proportion of rain cells with length>200 km and width>100 km is less than1%.There is a a log-linear relationship between the mean length and width of rain cells.Usually,for the same horizontal geometric parameters,rain cells tend to be square horizontally and lanky vertically over land,while vertically squatty over ocean.The rainfall intensity of rain cells varies from 0.4 to 10 mm h-1 over land to 0.4–8 mm h-1 over ocean.Statistical results indicate that the occurrence frequency of rain cells decreases as the areal fraction of convective precipitation in rain cells increases,while such frequency remains almost invariant when the areal fraction of stratiform precipitation varies from 10%to 80%.The relationship between physical and geometric parameters of rain cells shows that the mean rain rate of rain cells is more frequently associated with the increase of their area,with the increasing rate over land greater than that over ocean.The results also illustrate that heavy convective rain rate prefers to occur in larger rain cells over land while heavy stratiform rain rate tends to appear in larger rain cells over ocean.For the same size of rain cells,the areal fraction and the contribution of convective precipitation are about10%–15%higher over land than over ocean.

Comprehensive applicability evaluation of four precipitation products at multiple spatiotemporal scales in Northwest China

Precipitation plays a crucial role in the water cycle of Northwest China.Obtaining accurate precipitation data is crucial for regional water resource management,hydrological forecasting,flood control and drought relief.Currently,the applicability of multi-source precipitation products for long time series in Northwest China has not been thoroughly evaluated.In this study,precipitation data from 183 meteorological stations in Northwest China from 1979 to 2020 were selected to assess the regional applicability of four precipitation products(the fifth generation of European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts(ECMWF)atmospheric reanalysis of the global climate(ERA5),Global Precipitation Climatology Centre(GPCC),Climatic Research Unit gridded Time Series Version 4.07(CRU TS v4.07,hereafter CRU),and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission(TRMM))based on the following statistical indicators:correlation coefficient,root mean square error(RMSE),relative bias(RB),mean absolute error(MAE),probability of detection(POD),false alarm ratio(FAR),and equitable threat score(ETS).The results showed that precipitation in Northwest China was generally high in the east and low in the west,and exhibited an increasing trend from 1979 to 2020.Compared with the station observations,ERA5 showed a larger spatial distribution difference than the other products.The overall overestimation of multi-year average precipitation was approximately 200.00 mm and the degree of overestimation increased with increasing precipitation intensity.The multi-year average precipitation of GPCC and CRU was relatively close to that of station observations.The trend of annual precipitation of TRMM was overestimated in high-altitude regions and the eastern part of Lanzhou with more precipitation.At the monthly scale,GPCC performed well but underestimated precipitation in the Tarim Basin(RB=-4.11%),while ERA5 and TRMM exhibited poor accuracy in high-altitude regions.ERA5 had a large bias(RB≥120.00%)in winter months and a strong dispersion(RMSE≥35.00 mm)in summer months.TRMM showed a relatively low correlation with station observations in winter months(correlation coefficients≤0.70).The capture performance analysis showed that ERA5,GPCC,and TRMM had lower POD and ETS values and higher FAR values in Northwest China as the precipitation intensity increased.ERA5 showed a high capture performance for small precipitation events and a slower decreasing trend of POD as the precipitation intensity increased.GPCC had the lowest FAR values.TRMM was statistically ineffective for predicting the occurrence of daily precipitation events.The findings provide a reference for data users to select appropriate datasets in Northwest China and for data developers to develop new precipitation products in the future.

Assessment of the GPM and TRMM Precipitation Products Using the Rain Gauge Network over the Tibetan Plateau

Using high-quality hourly observations from national-level ground-based stations, the satellite-based rainfall products from both the Global Precipitation Measurement（GPM） Integrated Multisatellit E Retrievals for GPM（IMERG） and its predecessor, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission（TRMM） Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis（TMPA）, are statistically evaluated over the Tibetan Plateau（TP）, with an emphasis on the diurnal variation.The results indicate that：（1） the half-hourly IMERG rainfall product can explicitly describe the diurnal variation over the TP, but with discrepancies in the timing of the greatest precipitation intensity and an overestimation of the maximum rainfall intensity over the whole TP. In addition, the performance of IMERG on the hourly timescale, in terms of the correlation coefficient and relative bias, is different for regions with sea level height below or above 3500 m;（2） the IMERG products, having higher correlation and lower root-mean-square error, perform better than the TMPA products on the daily and monthly timescales; and（3） the detection ability of IMERG is superior to that of TMPA, as corroborated by a higher Hanssen and Kuipers score, a higher probability of detection, a lower false alarm ratio, and a lower bias. Compared to TMPA, the IMERG products ameliorate the overestimation across the TP. In conclusion,GPM IMERG is superior to TRMM TMPA over the TP on multiple timescales.

Synoptic Pattern and Severe Weather Associated with the Wide Convection over Southeast China During the Summer Monsoon Period

Based on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission（TRMM） precipitation radar observations, wide convection（WC） is defined as contiguous convective echoes over 40 d BZ, accompanied with a near surface rainfall area exceeding 1000 km^2. In Southeast China, the maximal occurrence frequency of WC takes place over the flat land region in the central plain of East China during the summer monsoon period of 1998–2010. When WC occurs in this region, the 500-h Pa atmospheric fields are categorized into three patterns by using an objective classification method, i.e., the deep-trough-control（DTr） pattern, the subtropical-highmaintenance（STH） pattern, and the typhoon-effect（Typh） pattern, which respectively accounts for 20.8%,52.8%, and 26.4% of the total WC occurrences. The DTr pattern starts to emerge the earliest（16–31 May）and occurs the most often in the second half of June; the STH pattern has a significant occurrence peak in the first half of July; the Typh pattern occurs mostly in July and August.Nearly all WC occurrences in this region are associated with thunderstorms, due to large convective available potential energy and abundant moisture. Among the three synoptic patterns, the DTr pattern features the driest and coldest air in the region, leading to the least occurrences of short-duration heavy rainfall. Strong winds occur the most often under the DTr pattern, probably owing to the largest difference in air humidity between the mid and low troposphere. Hail at the surface is rare for all occurrences of WC,which is probably related to the humid environmental air under all weather patterns and the high（〉 5 km）freezing level under the STH pattern.

Variations of Precipitation Structure and Microwave Tbs During the Evolution of a Hailstorm from TRMM Observations

In this paper, a hailstorm occurring on 9 May 1999 in Huanghuai region was studied by using the combined data from the precipitation radar （PR）, microwave image （TMI）, and visible infrared scanner （VIRS） on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission （TRMM） satellite. According to the 3-orbit observations of 5- h duration from the TRMM satellite, the variation characteristics of the precipitation structures as well as cloud top temperature and microwave signals of the precipitating cloud were comprehensively analyzed during the evolution of hailstorm. The results show that the precipitation is obviously converted from early hail cloud with strong convection into the later storm cloud with weak convection. For hail cloud, there exists some strong convective cells, and the heavy solid precipitation is shown at the middle-top levels so that the contribution of rainfall amount above the freezing-layer to the column precipitation amount is rather larger than that within the melting-layer. However, for storm cloud, the convective cells are surrounded by the large area of stratiform precipitation, and the precipitation thickness gradually decreases, and the rainfall above the freezing-layer obviously reduces and the contribution of rainfall amount within the melting-layer rapidly increases. Therefore, the larger ratio of rainfall amount above the freezing layer to column precipitation amount is, the more convective the cloud is; reversely, the larger proportion of rainfall below the melting layer is, the more stable the stratiform cloud is. The different changing trends of microwave signals at different precipitation stages show that it is better to consider the structures and stages of precipitating cloud to choose the optimal microwave channels to retrieve surface rainfall.

Heterogeneous Trends of Precipitation Extremes in Recent Two Decades over East Africa

East Africa is so vulnerable to the impacts of precipitation extremes varying from frequent floods to prolonged droughts.However,systematic regional assessment of precipitation extremes across seasons has received little attention,and most previous studies of precipitation extremes have employed many indices and sparse gauge observations giving marginalized details.In this study,we use three precipitation extreme indices to examine the intensity of the highest single-day rainfall record(rx1day),prevalence of very heavy rainfalls(r30mm),and persistence of successive wet days(cwd)at both annual and seasonal scales over recent two decades(1998-2018)based on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission(TRMM)Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis data.The results show that the most intensive and frequent precipitation extremes are noticeable from January to May across the areas extending from Madagascar to the Tanzanian coastal zone.These areas also exhibit patches of significant increasing trends in frequency,duration,and intensity of precipitation extremes annually and seasonally.However,significant declines in frequency and intensity of precipitation extremes are observed from western Ethiopia to Congo-Uganda,especially in June-September.The October-December season witnesses higher interannual variability amounting to overall weak and less significant trends.Further subregional assessment shows overall declining intensity and frequency of precipitation extremes in northern part of the study areas.Mean wetness duration increased,with persistence of moderate wet days and slight reduction of severe events.This study unveils higher susceptibility of the East African region to the widely observed hotspots of precipitation extremes posing threats to food security,water resource,and human well-being.The region should consider upscaling irrigation schemes in addition to planning resilient and supportive infrastructures to withstand the upsurging precipitation extremes,especially along the coastal zone.

SATELLITE MICROWAVE REMOTE SENSING OF FLOODING

The ability of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) for flooding and soil wetness detection has been demonstrated in this study.On the basis of TMI measurements,four methods,the classification method,the soil wetness index (SWI) method. the polarization difference index (PDI) method,and the polarization ratio index (PRI) method, were brought out to monitor flooding and study soil wetness in the Changjiang and Huaihe River Basins during the summer 1998.Compared with the images provided by L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (L-SAR) and Radar Satellite (Radarsat) and the figures derived from daily rainfall data based on the Z-index method,the detection of flooding and soil wetness by TMI was proved to be feasible.

ESTIMATION OF CLOUD LIQUID WATER OVER THE HUBEX AREA USING THE TRMM MICROWAVE IMAGER

The ability of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Imager(TRMM/TMI)for cloud liquid water(CLW)retrieval has been demonstrated in this study.Due to the great sensitivity of the TMI 85.5 GHz channels to CLW,the liquid water path(LWP)of nonprecipitating clouds over land can be successfully estimated using the VDISORT model based on the iteration steps.Both the vertical-polarized 85. 5 GHz single-channel method and the polarization-difference of 85.5 GHz method were applied to the LWP estimates over land regions during the Huaihe River Basin Energy and Water Cycle Experiment(HUBEX)in China.The retrieval results show reasonable agreement with the ground-based microwave radiometer measurements.When the surface emissivity or skin temperature is difficult to be made sure,the polarization-difference method shows advantages of providing estimates of LWP especially for low clouds because of its extremely insensitiveness to the surface skin temperature.

The Multiscale Factors Favorable for a Persistent Heavy Rain Event over Hainan Island in October 2010

A case study is presented of the multiscale characteristics that produced the record-breaking persistent heavy rainfall event（PHRE） over Hainan Island,northern South China Sea（SCS）,in autumn 2010.The study documents several key weather systems,from planetary scale to mesoscale,that contributed to the extreme rainfall during this event.The main findings of this study are as follows.First,the convectively active phase of the MJO was favorable for the establishment of a cyclonic circulation and the northward expansion of the Intertropical Convergence Zone（ITCZ）.The active disturbances in the northward ITCZ helped direct abundant moisture from adjacent oceans towards Hainan Island continuously throughout the event,where it interacted with cold air from the midlatitudes and caused heavy rain.Second,the 8-daylong PHRE can be divided into three processes according to different synoptic systems：peripheral cloud clusters of a tropical depression-type disturbance over the central SCS in process 1;interactions between the abnormally far north ITCZ and the invading cold air in process 2;and the newly formed tropical depression near Hainan Island in process 3.In the relatively stable synoptic background of each process,meso-α and meso-β-scale cloud clusters repeatedly traveled along the same path to Hainan Island.Finally,based on these analyses,a conceptual model is proposed for this type of PHRE in autumn over the northern SCS,which demonstrates the influences of multiscale systems.