Precipitation over the Southern Ocean: synoptic analysis and model evaluation using ground-based remote sensing and in-situ measurements

Author(s):  
Diogo Luis ◽  
Irina Gorodetskaya ◽  
Katherine Leonard ◽  
Elisabeth Schlosser ◽  
Etienne Vignon ◽  
...  

<p>Precipitation is still a poorly known variable in the Southern Ocean/Antarctica due to the lack of measurements. Unique precipitation measurements were carried out during the Swiss Polar Institute’s Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE) (December 2016 - March 2017). High temporal resolution measurements of precipitation were performed by a Snow Particle Counter (SPC) and by a micro rain radar (MRR) aboard the RV Akademik Tryoshnikov. Radiosondes were launched periodically to observe the vertical structure of the atmosphere. Additionally, MRR and radiosonde measurements from Dumont D’Urville station (DDU) were available when the expedition was in the Mertz Glacier region. These data offer a rare opportunity to evaluate model and reanalysis products performance in a region without regular precipitation measurements. In this study, ECMWF’s ERA5 reanalysis product and Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS) model data are evaluated using ACE and DDU in-situ observations. Two snowfall events that occurred around Mertz Glacier during the ACE campaign were chosen to compare ERA5 and AMPS data with in-situ measurements. The first event on 2 February 2017 was associated with an extratropical cyclone east of Adelie Land and a moderate along-shore moisture transport. The second event on 8-10 February 2017 was associated with a cyclone west of Mertz blocked by a high-pressure ridge, directing an intense moisture transport (identified as an atmospheric river) and precipitation to DDU. To assess if ERA5 reanalysis and AMPS (Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System using Polar-WRF model) are able to represent these different types of precipitation events, we analyse the differences in precipitation amount between in-situ, model and reanalysis data and compare modelled vertical profiles with radiosonde measurements.</p>

2021 ◽  
pp. 105623
Author(s):  
Stefan Becker ◽  
Ramesh Prasad Sapkota ◽  
Binod Pokharel ◽  
Loknath Adhikari ◽  
Rudra Prasad Pokhrel ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Jouvet ◽  
Eef van Dongen ◽  
Martin P. Lüthi ◽  
Andreas Vieli

Abstract. Measuring the ice flow motion accurately is essential to better understand the time evolution of glaciers and ice sheets, and therefore to better anticipate the future consequence of climate change in terms of sea-level rise. Although there exist a variety of remote sensing methods to fill this task, in-situ measurements are always needed for validation or to capture high temporal resolution movements. Yet glaciers are in general hostile environments where the installation of instruments might be tedious and risky when not impossible. Here we report the first-ever in-situ measurements of ice flow motion using a remotely controlled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). We used a multicopter UAV to land on a highly crevassed area of Eqip Sermia Glacier, West Greenland, to measure the displacement of the glacial surface with the aid of an on-board differential GNSS receiver. Despite the unfortunate loss of the UAV, we measured approximately 70 cm of displacement over 4.36 hours without setting foot onto the glacier – a result validated by applying UAV photogrammetry and template matching techniques. Our study demonstrates that UAVs are promising instruments for in-situ monitoring, and have a great potential for capturing short-term ice flow variations in inaccessible glaciers – a task that remote sensing techniques can hardly achieve.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 1467-1488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinel Sospedra-Alfonso ◽  
Lawrence Mudryk ◽  
William Merryfield ◽  
Chris Derksen

Abstract The ability of the Canadian Seasonal to Interannual Prediction System (CanSIPS) to provide realistic forecast initial conditions for snow cover is assessed using in situ measurements and gridded snow analyses. Forecast initial conditions for snow in CanCM3 and CanCM4 employed by CanSIPS are determined by the response of the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) used in both models to forcing from model atmospheric fields constrained by assimilation of 6-hourly reanalysis data. These snow initial conditions are found to be representative of the daily climatology of snow water equivalent (SWE) as well as interannual variations in maximum SWE and the timing of snow onset and snowmelt observed at eight in situ measurement sites located across Canada. The level of this agreement is similar to that of three independent gridded snow analyses (MERRA, the European Space Agency’s GlobSnow, and an offline forced version of CLASS). Total Northern Hemisphere snow mass generated by the CanSIPS initialization procedure is larger for both models (especially CanCM3) than in MERRA, mostly because of higher SWE in regions of common snow cover. Globally, the interannual variability of initial SWE is found to correlate highly with that of MERRA in locations with appreciable snow. These initial values are compared to SWE in freely running CanCM3 and CanCM4 simulations produced without data assimilation of atmospheric fields. Differences in climatological SWE relative to MERRA are similar in the freely running and assimilating CanCM3 and CanCM4 simulations, suggesting that inherent model biases are a major contributor to biases in CanSIPS snow initial conditions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval Reuveni ◽  
Anton Leontiev ◽  
Dorita Rostkier-Edelstein

<p>Improving the accuracy of numerical weather predictions still poses a challenging task. The lack of sufficiently detailed spatio-temporal real-time in-situ measurements constitutes a crucial gap concerning the adequate representation of atmospheric moisture fields, such as water vapor, which are critical for improving weather predictions accuracy. Information on total vertically integrated water vapor (IWV), extracted from global positioning systems (GPS) tropospheric path delays, can enhance various atmospheric models at global, regional, and local scales. Currently, numerous existing atmospheric numerical models predict IWV. Nevertheless, they do not provide accurate estimations compared with in-situ measurements such as radiosondes. In this work, we demonstrate a novel approach for assimilating 2D IWV regional maps estimations, extracted from GPS tropospheric path delays combined with METEOSAT satellite imagery data, to enhance Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model predictions accuracy above the Eastern Mediterranean area. Unlike previous studies, which assimilated IWV point measurements, here, we assimilate quasi-continuous 2D GPS IWV maps, augmented by METEOSAT-11 data, over Israel and its surroundings. Using the suggested approach, our results show a decrease of more than 30% in the root mean square error (RMSE) of WRF forecasts after assimilation relative to the standalone WRF when verified against in-situ radiosonde measurements near the Mediterranean coast. Furthermore, substantial improvements along the Jordan Rift Valley and Dead Sea Valley areas are achieved when compared to 2D IWV regional maps. Improvements in these areas suggest the importance of the assimilated high resolution IWV maps, in particular when assimilation and initialization times coincide with the Mediterranean Sea Breeze propagation from the coastline to highland stations.</p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 430 (4) ◽  
pp. 3102-3111 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Giordano ◽  
J. Vernin ◽  
H. Vázquez Ramió ◽  
C. Muñoz-Tuñón ◽  
A. M. Varela ◽  
...  

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Schneeberger ◽  
Christian Stamm ◽  
Christian Maetzler ◽  
Hannes Fluehler ◽  
Eberhard Lehmann ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 5735-5745 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madineni Venkat Ratnam ◽  
Alladi Hemanth Kumar ◽  
Achuthan Jayaraman

Abstract. To date, several satellites measurements are available which can provide profiles of temperature and water vapour with reasonable accuracies. However, the temporal resolution has remained poor, particularly over the tropics, as most of them are polar orbiting. At this juncture, the launch of INSAT-3D (Indian National Satellite System) by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on 26 July 2013 carrying a multi-spectral imager covering visible to long-wave infrared made it possible to obtain profiles of temperature and water vapour over India with higher temporal and vertical resolutions and altitude coverage, besides other parameters. The initial validation of INSAT-3D data is made with the high temporal (3 h) resolution radiosonde observations launched over Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E) during a special campaign and routine evening soundings obtained at 12:00 UTC (17:30 LT). We also compared INSAT-3D data with the radiosonde observations obtained from 34 India Meteorological Department stations. Comparisons were also made over India with data from other satellites like AIRS, MLS and SAPHIR and from ERA-Interim and NCEP reanalysis data sets. INSAT-3D is able to show better coverage over India with high spatial and temporal resolutions as expected. Good correlation in temperature between INSAT-3D and in situ measurements is noticed except in the upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric regions (positive bias of 2–3 K). There is a mean dry bias of 20–30 % in the water vapour mixing ratio. Similar biases are noticed when compared to other satellites and reanalysis data sets. INSAT-3D shows a large positive bias in temperature above 25° N in the lower troposphere. Thus, caution is advised when using these data for tropospheric studies. Finally it is concluded that temperature data from INSAT-3D are of high quality and can be directly assimilated for better forecasts over India.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Guillaume Jouvet ◽  
Eef van Dongen ◽  
Martin P. Lüthi ◽  
Andreas Vieli

Abstract. Measuring the ice flow motion accurately is essential to better understand the time evolution of glaciers and ice sheets and therefore to better anticipate the future consequence of climate change in terms of sea level rise. Although there are a variety of remote sensing methods to fill this task, in situ measurements are always needed for validation or to capture high-temporal-resolution movements. Yet glaciers are in general hostile environments where the installation of instruments might be tedious and risky when not impossible. Here we report the first-ever in situ measurements of ice flow motion using a remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). We used a quadcopter UAV to land on a highly crevassed area of Eqip Sermia Glacier, West Greenland, to measure the displacement of the glacial surface with the aid of an onboard differential GNSS receiver. We measured approximately 70 cm of displacement over 4.36 h without setting foot onto the glacier – a result validated by applying UAV photogrammetry and template matching techniques. Our study demonstrates that UAVs are promising instruments for in situ monitoring and have great potential for capturing continuous ice flow variations in inaccessible glaciers – a task that remote sensing techniques can hardly achieve.


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