Journal article

Microphysics and dynamics of snowfall associated with a warm conveyor belt over Korea

  • Gehring, Josué Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory (LTE), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Oertel, Annika Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science (IAC), Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland
  • Vignon, Étienne Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory (LTE), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Jullien, Nicolas Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
  • Besic, Nikola Centre Météorologie Radar, Météo France, Toulouse, France
  • Berne, Alexis Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory (LTE), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
Show more…
    25.06.2020
Published in:
  • Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - 2020, vol. 20, no. 12, p. 7373–7392
English On 28 February 2018, 57 mm of precipitation associated with a warm conveyor belt (WCB) fell within 21 h over South Korea. To investigate how the large-scale circulation influenced the microphysics of this intense precipitation event, we used radar measurements, snowflake photographs and radiosounding data from the International Collaborative Experiments for Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (ICE-POP 2018). The WCB was identified with trajectories computed with analysis wind fields from the Integrated Forecast System global atmospheric model. The WCB was collocated with a zone of enhanced wind speed of up to 45 m s−1 at 6500 m a.s.l., as measured by a radiosonde and a Doppler radar. Supercooled liquid water (SLW) with concentrations exceeding 0.2 g kg−1 was produced during the rapid ascent within the WCB. During the most intense precipitation period, vertical profiles of polarimetric radar variables show a peak and subsequent decrease in differential reflectivity as aggregation starts. Below the peak in differential reflectivity, the specific differential phase shift continues to increase, indicating early riming of oblate crystals and secondary ice generation. We hypothesise that the SLW produced in the WCB led to intense riming. Moreover, embedded updraughts in the WCB and turbulence at its lower boundary enhanced aggregation by increasing the probability of collisions between particles. This suggests that both aggregation and riming occurred prominently in this WCB. This case study shows how the large-scale atmospheric flow of a WCB provides ideal conditions for rapid precipitation growth involving SLW production, riming and aggregation. Future microphysical studies should also investigate the synoptic conditions to understand how observed processes in clouds are related to large-scale circulation.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences et de médecine
Department
Département de Géosciences
Language
  • English
Classification
Meteorology, climatology
License
License undefined
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/308726
Statistics

Document views: 28 File downloads:
  • jull_mds.pdf: 38