Spatial and temporal variability of precipitation extreme indices in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran for the last half-century

Precipitation variability analysis, on different spatial and temporal scales, has been of great concern during the past century because of the attention given to global climate change by the scientific community. According to some recent studies, the Iranian territory has been experienced a precipitation variability, especially in the last 50 years, and the arid and semi-arid areas seem to be more affected. The present study aims to analyze precipitation extreme indices over a wide time interval and a wide area, detecting potential trends and assessing their significance. The investigation is based on a wide range of daily and multi-day precipitation statistics encompassing basic characteristics and heavy precipitation. Two different methods of trend analysis and statistical testing are applied, depending on the nature of the statistics. Linear regression is used for statistics with a continuous value range, and logistic regression is used for statistics with a discrete value range. The trends are calculated on annual and seasonal bases for the years 1951–2007. Statistical analysis of the database highlight that a clear trend signal is found with a high number of sites with a statistically significant trend. In winter, significant increases are found for all statistics related to precipitation strength and occurrence. In spring, statistically, significant increases are found only for the statistics related to heavy precipitation, whereas precipitation frequency and occurrence statistics show little systematic change. The trend signal is strongest in highlands and mountainous terrains. In autumn and summer, the heavy and basic precipitation statistics did not show statistically significant trends.

Local identification of persistent cold air pool conditions in the Great Hungarian Plain

Cold air pool (CAP) is a winter-time, anticyclonic weather event: a cold air layer confined by the topography and warm air aloft. If its duration is more than one day, then it is called persistent cold air pool (PCAP). CAPs are mainly examined in small basins and valleys. Fewer studies pay attention to PCAPs in much larger basins (with an area of more than 50 000 km2), and it is not evident how effective the existing numerical definitions are in cases of extensive PCAP events. A possible method of identifying PCAPs in a large basin is to identify PCAP weather conditions at different measuring sites across the basin. If there are PCAP weather conditions at most of the sites, then it is likely to be an extensive PCAP. In this work, we examine which of the documented CAP definitions can be used for reliable local detection of CAP conditions. Daily weather reports and meteorological data from two locations in the 52 000 km2 sized Great Hungarian Plain have been used to obtain a reference set of days with PCAP weather conditions during two consecutive winter months. Several numerical CAP definitions were compared for their performance in recognizing the presence of PCAP weather conditions using radiosonde measurements and reanalysis data. The lowest error was produced by using the heat deficit (HD) method. So this is considered the most suitable method for local identification of PCAPs in the Great Hungarian Plain.

Numerical simulations of June 7, 2020 convective precipitation over Slovakia using deterministic, probabilistic, and convection-permitting approaches

The paper presented is dedicated to the evaluation of the influence of various improvements to the numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems exploited at the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMÚ). The impact was illustrated in a case study with multicell thunderstorms and the results were confronted with the reference analyses from the INCA nowcasting system, regional radar reflectivity data, and METEOSAT satellite imagery. The convective cells evolution was diagnosed in non-hydrostatic dynamics experiments to study weak mesoscale vortices and updrafts. The growth of simulated clouds and evolution of the temperature at their top were compared with the brightness temperature analyzed from satellite imagery. The results obtained indicated the potential for modeling and diagnostics of small-scale structures within the convective cloudiness, which could be related to severe weather. Furthermore, the non-hydrostatic dynamics experiments related to the stability and performance improvement of the time scheme led to the formulation of a new approach to linear operator definition for semi-implicit scheme (in text referred as NHHY). We demonstrate that the execution efficiency has improved by more than 20%. The exploitation of several high resolution measurement types in data assimilation contributed to more precise position of predicted patterns and precipitation representation in the case study. The non-hydrostatic dynamics provided more detailed structures. On the other hand, the potential of a single deterministic forecast of prefrontal heavy precipitation was not as high as provided by the ensemble system. The prediction of a regional ensemble system A-LAEF (ALARO Limited Area Ensemble Forecast) enhanced the localization of precipitation patterns. Though, this was rather due to the simulation of uncertainty in the initial conditions and also because of the stochastic perturbation of physics tendencies. The various physical parameterization setups of A-LAEF members did not exhibit a systematic effect on precipitation forecast in the evaluated case. Moreover, the ensemble system allowed an estimation of uncertainty in a rapidly developing severe weather case, which was high even at very short range.

Effect of the uncertainty in meteorology on air quality model predictions

An operational air quality forecasting model system has been developed and provides daily forecasts of ozone, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter for the area of Hungary and three big cites of the country (Budapest, Miskolc, and Pécs). The core of the model system is the CHIMERE off-line chemical transport model. The AROME numerical weather prediction model provides the gridded meteorological inputs for the chemical model calculations. The horizontal resolution of the AROME meteorological fields is consistent with the CHIMERE horizontal resolution. The individual forecasted concentrations for the following 2 days are displayed on a public website of the Hungarian Meteorological Service. It is essential to have a quantitative understanding of the uncertainty in model output arising from uncertainties in the input meteorological fields. The main aim of this research is to probe the response of an air quality model to its uncertain meteorological inputs. Ensembles are one method to explore how uncertainty in meteorology affects air pollution concentrations. During the past decades, meteorological ensemble modeling has received extensive research and operational interest because of its ability to better characterize forecast uncertainty. One such ensemble forecast system is the one of the AROME model, which has an 11-member ensemble where each member is perturbed by initial and lateral boundary conditions. In this work we focus on wintertime particulate matter concentrations, since this pollutant is extremely sensitive to near-surface mixing processes. Selecting a number of extreme air pollution situations we will show what the impact of the meteorological uncertainty is on the simulated concentration fields using AROME ensemble members.

Influence of climate change on river discharges over the Sava River watershed in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The paper examines changes in air temperature, precipitation, and river discharges on seasonal and annual scale over the Sava River watershed in Bosnia & Herzegovina during the period 1961–2016. Based upon data gathered from 11 meteorological stations and 3 hydrological stations, hydroclimatic variables trends were established by utilizing the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test and the nonparametric Sen’s slope estimator. The results show significant positive seasonal and annual trends (expect for autumn, during which upward trends were insignificant) in air temperature, whereas both positive and negative insignificant seasonal and annual precipitation trends are shown where determined for the entire watershed. Most prominent upward trends in air temperature were found in summer and afterwards in winter and spring, indicating a pronounced warming tendency over the Sava River watershed. Trends in river discharge displayed a negative tendency in all seasons. Nevertheless, a majority of estimated trends of river discharges were weak and statistically insignificant. Throughout the year, river discharges showed significant positive correlation with precipitation, whilst connection with air temperature was mostly significant and negative. The study results suggest that climate is an important factor affecting river regimes, as well as that changes in river discharges are reflecting recent abrupt changes in climatic variables.

Predictive control of a solar thermal system via on-line communication with a meteorological database server

In this paper, the mathematical models of a solar thermal system which governs the solar thermal collector, the heat storage system, and the pump are presented. It has been shown that it is possible to connect a Simulink-based model to a meteorological database server using standard communication protocols by a C language-based component in order to import real-life weather information into the simulation. The setup of the model predictive control of this solar thermal system and the results of the simulation are also presented. This computationally heavy control method is possible to use on today's personal computers, and it can be expanded.

Analysis of heating and cooling periods in Budapest using station data

The built environment has a very complex role in cities. On the one hand, various urban climatological phenomena are caused and influenced by buildings (e.g., urban heat island effect, local wind conditions, air pollution). On the other hand, buildings are important contributors to energy use via heating and cooling, e.g. they account for about 40% of total energy consumption on average in Europe. Daily average outdoor temperature is taken into account to design the heating and cooling systems of residential, commercial, or office buildings. That is why we analyzed the available temperature time series of the capital of Hungary, Budapest for the period between 1901 and 2019. The aims of this study are (i) to investigate the changes in temperature data series that influence building energy design parameters, (ii) to analyze the heating and cooling periods in the last 119 years based on different definitions, and (iii) to define a third (transitional) period between the heating and cooling periods. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the variability of warm days is smaller than that of cold days, consequently, the optimal design of heating systems is a greater challenge compared to cooling systems. Furthermore, the length of the temperature-based heating period decreased substantially, while the length of the cooling period increased as a consequence of overall regional warming.

On the correction of processed historical rainfall data of siphoned rainfall recorders

Historical rainfall data registered by siphoned rainfall recorder (SRW) devices have been widely used for a long time in rainfall intensity investigations. A relatively known counting error of the SRW devices is the siphoning error, when the registration of rainfall is blocked temporarily, during the drainage of measure tank. This issue causes a systematic underestimation in the rainfall and rainfall intensity measurement results. To reduce its consequences, a data correction is crucial when SRW data are used, for example as a reference for climate comparison studies, or for proceeding of intensity-duration-frequency curves, etc. In this paper, a formula is presented to fix the siphonage error of SRW devices for historical rainfall data. The early measures were processed in a significant percentage of cases, and sometimes the original measurement results (registration ribbon) have been lost. An essential advantage of the presented formula is that it can be applied for these processed data, which show only the intensity of a known length time interval. For this correction, the average rainfall intensity and the length of the time window are needed, over the physical parameters of the SRW device. The data correction can provide a fixed value of the rainfall intensity, which is undoubtedly closer to the real average rainfall intensity. The importance of this formula is in the reprocessing and validation of the historical rainfall intensity data, measured by siphoned rainfall recorders.

Basics of the atmospheric energetics : A brief summary of global and regional atmospheric energetics reflected upon the university curricula

The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the science and development of atmospheric energetics, its so far matured parts to date, and the direction of the researches. However, we restrict ourselves to the discussion of the very basic results of the researches to reveal the parts the introduction of which can be suggested into the compulsory education of the future meteorologist. This became feasible especially due to the rapid development of the personal computer that makes possible the calculation of the atmospheric energies for students by using their own laptops, so this field of meteorology now can be a tactile reality for them. The founder of atmospheric energetics was Lorenz, who formulated for a global, dry atmosphere the concept of available potential energy, which is the difference between the current energy state of the atmosphere and a reference state with minimum energy. His basic results concerning the global description of atmospheric energetics have already become part of the university curriculum. It is important to be able to describe the energy balance of the atmosphere both locally as well as globally, for which the introduction of enthalpy and exergy seemed appropriate. The advantage of examining the dry atmosphere is that significant simplifications can be applied, but the atmosphere is finally moist, so research has also started in this direction, first with a global and then with a local approach. The key is to find the reference state, which is a complex, computationally demanding task. In this paper, we focus on the most important steps of this process and concentrate on the thermodynamic basis of the new concepts.

Evapotranspiration estimation at the Kis-Balaton wetland

Evapotranspiration rate, ETaand vegetation composition strongly influence the water budget of wetland impacting available water and water resource management. One of the goals of this study was to estimate the areal ETa of the Kis-Balaton wetland, KBW (natural ecosystem) between 1997 and 2012. This time period was free of any human intervention. ETa was accounted for different vegetation classes through the multiplication of the reference evapotranspiration, ET0 by previously determined crop coefficients in each vegetation/open water classes. Besides common reed and cattail, five other groups were separated, including open water as an independent class. The evapotranspiration sums were strongly impacted by annual mean air temperature, Ta. One degree increment in annual average Ta will increase the yearly ETa sums in about 100 mm. The yearly areal ETaof KBW ranged from 737.08 mm to 896.63 mm with an average of 802.07 mm during the 16-year study.