Statistic characteristics and weather significance of infrared TBB during May―August in Beijing and its vicinity

In order to meet the demand of nowcasting convective storms in Beijing, the climatological characteristics of convective storms in Beijing and its vicinity were analyzed based on the infrared (IR) temperature of black body (TBB) data during May―August of 1997―2004. The climatological probabilities, the diurnal cycle and the spatial distribution of convective storms are given respectively in this paper. The results show that the climatological characteristics of convective storms denoted by TBB≤-52℃ are consistent with those statistic studies based on the surface and lightning observations. Furthermore, the climatological characteristics of May and June are very different from those of July and August, showing that there are two types of convective storms in this region. One occurs in the transient polar air mass on the midlatitude continent during the late spring and early summer. This type of convection arises with thunder, strong wind gust and hail over the mountainous area in the northern part of this region from afternoon to nightfall, the other occurs with heavy rainfall in the warm and moist air mass over the North China Plain and vicinity of Bohai Sea. This study also shows that the long-term data of IR TBB observed by geostationary satellite can complement the temporal and spatial limitation of the weather radar and surface observations.     

Statistic characteristics of severe convective storm during Warm-Season in the Beijing-Tianjin region and its vicinity

This study analyzed the climatological characteristics of severe convective storms in the Beijing and Tianjin region and its vicinity based on the Doppler radar data of Tanggu during May-August of 2003-2007. The climatological characteristics, e.g. storm area, volume, top height, max reflectivity, life time and motion, are analyzed. The results include： 75% of all storms in the Beijing-Tianjin region last no more than 30 minutes, and most storms have a volume less than 400 kin3; most storms move from southwest to northeast while the speed is between 10-30 km/h; the mean storm top height is about 6 km, but some strong convective storms can have a top height larger than 15 kin; finally, storm area and volume have a similar geographical distribution character showing increasing trends from west to east. Compared with the statistic results based on the conventional surface meteorological observations, the results based on the radar data can present not only 3D spatial statistic results of convective storms （e.g., volume and top height）, but also the quantitative climatological characteristics, such as the lifetime and speed distributions. These statistical results are useful for studying the climatic characteristics of convective storms in the Beijing-Tianjin region and its vicinity.     

Climatological distribution and diurnal variation of mesoscale convective systems over China and its vicinity during summer

The climatological distribution of mesoscale convective systems （MCSs） over China and its vicinity during summer is statistically analyzed, based on the 10-year （1996-2006, 2004 excluded） June-August infrared TBB （Temperature of black body） dataset. Comparing the results obtained in this paper with the distribution of thunderstorms from surface meteorological stations over China and the distribution of lightning from low-orbit satellites over China and its vicinity in the previous studies, we find that the statistic characteristics of TBB less than -52℃ can better represent the spatiotemporal distribution of MCSs over China and its vicinity during summer. The spreading pattern of the MCSs over this region shows three transmeridional bands of active MCSs, with obvious fluctuation of active MCSs in the band near 30^oN. It can be explained by the atmospheric circulation that the three bands of active MCSs are associated with each other by the summer monsoon over East Asia. We focus on the diurnal variations of MCSs over different underlying surfaces, and the result shows that there are two types of MCSs over China and its vicinity during summer. One type of MCSs has only one active period all day long （single-peak MCSs）, and the other has multiple active periods （multi-peak MCSs）. Single-peak MCSs occur more often over plateaus or mountains, and multi-peak MCSs are more common over plains or basins. Depending on lifetimes and active periods, single-peak MCSs can be classified as Tibetan Plateau MCSs, general mountain MCSs, Ryukyu MCSs, and so on. The diurnal variation of multi-peak MCSs is very similar to that of MCCs （mesoscale convective complexes）, and it reveals that multi-peak MCSs has longer life cycle and larger horizontal scale, becomes weaker after sunset, and develops again after midnight. Tibetan Plateau MCSs and general mountain MCSs both usually develop in the afternoon, but Tibetan Plateau MCSs have longer life cycle and more active MαCSs. Ryukyu MCSs generally develop after     

Semi-analytical analysis of the response of the air temperature over the land surface to the global vegetation distribution

Response of the air temperature over the land surface to the global vegetation distribution is investigated, using a three-dimensional governing equation to simulate the steady, large-scale, limited amplitude perturbation of the free, inviscid and adiabatic atmosphere. The adoption of the static equation leads to a temperature governing equation in the terrain following coordinate. With the prescribed temperature as the upper boundary condition and the radiation balance as the lower boundary condition, the semi-analytical solution of the global circulation temperature can be calculated. In this article, only the air temperature （at 2 m height） over the land surface is analyzed, and the result suggests that this model can simulate the air temperature pattern over the land surface reasonably. A better simulation occurs when a simple feedback of the albedo on the temperature is included. Two sensitivity experiments are analyzed through this model. One suggests that the air temperature over the land surface descends obviously when the land surface is covered with ice all over, while another suggests that the air temperature rises a little when the land surface is covered with forest except the ice-covered area. This model appears to be a good tool to study the response of the air temperature to the vegetation distribution. Limitations of the model are also discussed.     

Numerical simulation of Meiyu front and the diagnosis of moist vorticity vector

Moist vorticity vector is introduced to study the development and evolution of mesoscale convective vortex (MCV) in the Meiyu front precipitation with the Advanced Regional Predication System (ARPS). In this study, the heavy rainfall is simulated to investigate the genesis, development and dissipation of middle scale convective vortex, which occurred from 0000 UTC 3 July to 1200 UTC 5 July over the Jianghuai River valley. Moist vorticity vector (MVV) has zonal, radial and vertical components in its 3D spatial distribution. The simulation shows that the vertical component of moist vorticity vector well demonstrates the spatial distribution characteristics of middle scale convective vortex, especially in the process of Meiyu front precipitation. Diagnosis upon zonal, radial averaged and mass-integrated quantities of MVV shows that its vertical component and the surface precipitating ratio are in phase with a correlation coefficient of 0.68, indicating that the vertical component of MVV is closely associated with the Meiyu front precipitation. In addition, the tendency of the vertical component of MVV is mainly determined by the interaction between the vorticity and the zonal and radial gradient of condensational or depositional heating.     

The extremum principle of mass entransy dissipation and its application to decontamination ventilation designs in space station cabins

In terms of the analogy between mass and heat transfer phenomena, a new physical quantity, i.e. mass entransy, is introduced to represent the ability of an object for transferring mass to outside. Meanwhile, the mass entransy dissipation occurs during mass transfer processes as an alternative to measure the mass transfer irreversibility. Then the concepts of mass entransy and its dissipation are used to develop the extremum principle of mass entransy dissipation and the corresponding method for convective mass transfer optimization, based on which an Euler＇s equation has been deduced as the optimization equation for the fluid flow to obtain the best convective mass transfer performance with some specific constraints. As an example, the ventilation process for removing gaseous pollutants in a space station cabin with a uniform air supply system has been optimized to reduce the energy consumption of the ventilation system and decrease the contaminant concentration in the cabin. By solving the optimization equation, an optimal air velocity distribution with the best decontamination performance for a given viscous dissipation is firstly obtained. With the guide of this optimal velocity field, a suitable concentrated air supply system with appropriate air inlet position and width has been designed to replace the uniform air supply system, which leads to the averaged and the maximum contaminant concentrations in the cabin been decreased by 75% and 60%, respectively, and the contaminant concentration near the contaminant source surface been decreased by 50%, while the viscous dissipation been reduced by 30% simultaneously.     

Simulation of the western North Pacific summer monsoon by regional ocean–atmosphere coupled model:impacts of oceanic components

A successful simulation of the western North Pacific summer monsoon needs a regional ocean–atmosphere coupled model(ROAM). How the performance of ROAM relies on the oceanic component model remains unknown. In this study, the authors investigated the effects of different oceanic components on the simulation of western North Pacific(WNP) summer monsoon in a ROAM. Three cases of simulations were performed, viz. the summer of 1998(El Nin o decaying phase), 2004(El Nin o developing phase), and 1993(the non-ENSO phase). Results show that the coupled simulations for different ENSO phases exhibit improvements in the simulation of location of Meiyu rainband and spatial distribution of monsoon low-level flow over WNP, whereas the systemic cold biases of sea surface air temperature are further increased. The coupled simulations with different oceanic components show similar performance, which is not ENSO phase dependent. For the case of the summer of 1998, a slightly stronger western Pacific subtropical high and colder sea surface air temperature are found in the simulation with colder sea surface temperature(SST) biases. The colder SST biases are partly contributed by the ocean dynamics processes because the sea surface net flux favors a warmer SST. This study suggests that the dependence of performance of ROAM over WNP on oceanic models is much weaker than that on atmospheric models.     

Interannual variation of annual precipitation and urban effect on precipitation in the Beijing region

The large scale character of the interannual variation of precipitation and the urban effect on local annual precipitation anomaly are investigated in this paper based on the 1960-2000 annual precipitation observations at 20 stations in the Beijing region.The results show that:the annual precipitation in the Beijing region possesses the large scale variation character with the linear trend of-1.197/10 yr,which corresponds to a total reduction of 27.82 mm in annual precipitation in the 41 years;the local annual precipitation anomalies(percent of the normal 1960-2000)show a positive center near the urban area,i.e.urban precipitation island(UPI),whose intensity increases with the linear trend of 0.6621%/10 yr,opposite to the interannual trend of large scale precipitation over the Beijing region;changes in the UPI are also associated with the intensity of synoptic processes of precipitation,and when the synoptic processes are strong(wet years),the intensity of UPI strengthens,while the synoptic processes are weak(dry years),and the UPI disappears in the Beijing region.     

Effects of autumn-winter Arctic sea ice on winter Siberian High

The intensity of the winter Siberian High has significantly negative correlations with Arctic sea ice concentration anomalies from the previous autumn to winter seasons in the Eastern Arctic Ocean and Siberian marginal seas. Our results indicate that autumn-winter Arctic sea ice concentration and concurrent sea surface temperature anomalies are responsible for the winter Siberian High and surface air temperature anomalies over the mid-high latitudes of Eurasia and East Asia. Numerical experiments also support this conclusion, and consistently show that the low sea ice concentration causes negative surface air temperature anomalies over the mid-high latitudes of Eurasia. A mechanism is proposed to explain the association between autumn-winter sea ice concentration and winter Siberian High. Our results also show that September sea ice concentration provides a potential precursor for winter Siberian High that cannot be predicted using only tropical sea surface temperatures. In the last two decades (1990–2009), a strengthening trend of winter Siberian High along with a decline trend in surface air temperature in the mid-high latitudes of the Asian Continent have favored the recent frequent cold winters over East Asia. The reason for these short-term trends in winter Siberian High and surface air temperature are discussed.     

Contribution of cloud condensate to surface rainfall process

Contribution of cloud condensate to surface rainfall processes is investigated in a life span of tropical convection based on hourly data from a two-dimensional cloud resolving simulation. The model is forced by the large-scale vertical velocity, zonal wind and horizontal advections obtained from tropical ocean global atmosphere coupled ocean-atmosphere response experiment (TOGA COARE). The results show that during the genesis, development, and decay of tropical convection, calculations with water vapor overestimate surface rain rate, and cloud condensate plays an important role in correcting overestimation in surface rain rates. The analysis is carried out in deep convective clouds and anvil clouds during the development of tropical convection. The surface rain rates calculated with water vapor in deep convective clouds and anvil clouds have similar magnitudes, the large surface rain rate appears in deep convective clouds due to the consumption of water hydrometeors whereas the small surface rain rate occurs in anvil clouds because of the gain of ice hydrometeors. Further analysis of the grid data shows that the surface rain rates calculated with water vapor and with cloud condensate are negatively correlated with the correlation coefficient of -0.85, and the surface rain rate calculated with cloud condensate is mainly contributed to the water hydrometeors in the tropical deep convective regime.     

Northern China maximum temperature in the summer of 1743： A historical event of burning summer in a relatively warm climate background

In the context of historical climate records of China and early meteorological measurements of Beijing discovered recently in Europe, a study is undertaken on the 1743 hottest summer of north China over the last 700 a, covering Beijing, Tianjin, and the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi and Shandong, with the highest temperature reaching 44.4℃ in July 1743 in Beijing, in excess of the maximum climate record in the 20th century. Results show that the related weather/climate features of the 1743 heat wave, e.g., flood/drought distribution and Meiyu activity and the external forcings, such as solar activity and equatorial Pacific SST condition are the same as those of the 1942 and 1999 heat events. It is noted that the 1743 burning summer event occurs in a relatively warm climate background prior to the Industrial Revolution, with a lower level of CO2 release.     

Study on characteristics of double surface VOC emissions from dry fiat-plate building materials

This paper sets up an analytic model of double surface emission of volatile organic compound （VOC） from dry, flat-plate building materials. Based on it, the influence of factors including air change rate, loading factor of materials in the room, mass diffusion coefficient, partition coefficient, convective mass transfer coefficient, thickness of materials, asymmetric convective flow and initial VOC concentration distribution in the building material on emission is discussed. The conditions for simplifying double surface emission into single surface emission are also discussed. The model is helpful to assess the double surface VOC emission from flat-plate building materials used in indoor furniture and space partition.     

Development and improvement of mass flux convection parameterization scheme and its applications in the seasonal climate predication model

The features of Gregory cumulus parameterization scheme, which is used in British Weather Office, are researched and then this scheme is developed and improved according to the characteristics of area precipitation over China. Firstly, the influence of the large-scale convergence in lower tropopause upon cumulus convection is directly taken into account in a “bulk“ cloud model. The organized entrainment and detrainment is considered in the model. Secondly, the initial mass flux is revised. Thirdly, the effects of subcooling water upon saturation vapour pressure are considered. Eventually, the drown-draft air is regulated. For several years, the numerical forecast of seasonal precipitation in China has been carried out by using the modified Gregory scheme. The result shows that the model with improved Gregory scheme well simulates the precipitation over China and the prediction result is good.     

High-resolution seasonal snowfall simulation over Northeast China

Performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in simulating seasonal snowfall over Northeast China was examined. The influences of horizontal resolution and physics parameterization schemes were also investigated. The results indicate that WRF can reasonably reproduce the main features of temperature and precipitation. The simulated spatial and temporal distribution of snowfall compared well with observations. Higher resolution simulations achieved better results, and WRF was found to be more sensitive to the choice of land surface and microphysics scheme than convective cumulus parameterization scheme.     

Development of CMAQ for East Asia CO2 data assimilation under an EnKF framework: a first result

Under an Ensemble Kalman Filter(EnKF)framework,Regional Atmospheric Modeling System and Models-3 Community Multi-scale Air Quality(RAMS–CMAQ)modeling system is developed to be a CO2data assimilation system EnKF–CMAQ,and the EnKF–CMAQ system is then applied to East Asia for validation with real continuous surface CO2concentration observations available in the study domain instead of using an observation simulation system experiment.Experiments with an experimental period of January 23 to February 7,2007 are conducted,and the experimental results of the EnKF–CMAQ system and the RAMS–CMAQ model are compared against continuous surface CO2observations from assimilation sites and independent reference sites.Distributions of daily mean CO2concentration increments show that the EnKF–CMAQ system confines the update of daily mean CO2within areas nearby and downwind of the assimilation sites.Both the CO2concentration ensemble spreads and background error covariances show flow-dependent patterns.The results indicate the crucial role of wind transport in the CO2data assimilation,which agrees with the previous studies.The average bias and the average root-mean-square error(RMSE)of daily mean CO2concentration at the assimilation sites are reduced by 1.00 and1.83 ppm,respectively,and those at the reference sites are reduced by 0.24 and 0.22 ppm,respectively.The results demonstrate the EnKF–CMAQ system is capable of assimilating the continuous surface CO2concentration observations to improve the simulation accuracy of the atmospheric CO2synoptic variation.Since growing CO2observations over East Asia are being available nowadays,this work is our first step to generate consistent spatial and temporal atmospheric CO2concentration fields over East Asia,particularly over China,using both in situ and satellite observations.     

NO and N2O fluxes from agricultural soils in Beijing area

Chinese agriculture represents one of the most intensively managed agroecosystems in the world. Typical nitrogen fertilization rates are more than three times those of the world' s average, resulting in dramatically accelerated nitrogen cycling in China. In this study, we have examined NO and N2O exchange in the upland agricultural systems of Beijing area. Inorganic and organic fertilizer treatments were arranged in order to evaluate their impact on the magnitude and proportion of trace gas emissions. Increasing inorganic fertilization rates showed a highly significant impact upon emissions of both NO and N2O. Organic matter amendment did not have a statistically significant impact on the N-gas fluxes examined here. Overall losses of added nitrogen by NO and N2O emission averaged 1.24% and 0.22% respectively over the range of treatments in this study. Results from our field study indicate that compared with other studies done elsewhere, emissions of reactive nitrogen from agricultural systems in Beijing area are not so large as expected before.     

Seasonal variation of the temperature profile and its characteristics within urban roughness sublayer

By using conventional micro-meteorological observation data of Beijing Yuetan Park Tower (180 m), the temperature profile of urban boundary layer (UBL), its characteristics and seasonal variation are analyzed. The main results are as follows: (1) In winter, the interdiurnal surface air temperature varia- tion at the surface is not synchronized with that of the upper levels, other than in summer and other seasons, which illuminates the impacts of Beijing’s geographical location, sky view factor and stably st...     

Hotspots of the sensitivity of the land surface hydrological cycle to climate change

Due to the shortage of the global observational data of the terrestrial hydrological variables,the understanding of how surface hydrological processes respond to climate change is still limited.In this study,the Community Land Model(CLM4.0)with high resolution atmospheric forcing data is selected to simulate the global surface hydrological quantities during the period 1948–2006and to investigate the spatial features of these quantities in response to climate change at the regional scales.The sensitivities of evaporation and runoff with respect to the dominant climate change factors(e.g.temperature and precipitation)derived from the concept of climate elasticity are introduced.Results show that evaporation has a declining trend with a rate of 0.7 mm per decade,while runoff shows a weak increasing trend of 0.15 mm per decade over the global land surface.Analyses of the hotspots in the hydrological cycle indicate that the spatial distributions for evaporation and runoff are similar over many areas in central Asia,Australia,and southern South America,but differ largely in high latitudes.It is also found that,the evaporation hotspots in arid regions are mainly associated with the changes in precipitation.Our sensitive analysis suggests that the hydrological quantities show a rather complicated spatial dependency of response of the water cycle to the different climate factors(temperature and precipitation).     

Preliminary results of a new global ocean reanalysis

Using a new global ocean reanalysis of the second generation Global Ocean Data Assimilation System of the Beijing Climate Center(BCC_GODAS2.0) spanning the period 1990-2009,we firstly quantify the accuracy of BCC_GODAS2.0 in representing the temperature and salinity by comparing with OISST and SODA data.The results show that the assimilation system may effectively improve the estimations of temperature and salinity by assimilating all kinds of observations,especially in the equatorial eastern Pacific.Moreover,the root mean square errors of monthly temperature and salinity are respectively reduced by 0.53℃ and 0.28 psu,compared with the model control simulation results.Then,the applicability of this ocean reanalysis for sea surface temperature(SST) anomaly variability in the tropical Pacific is evaluated with the observational HadISST data.The NINO3 index of the new reanalysis shows a good agreement with that of HadISST,with a correlation of 93.6%.Variations in SST from BCC_GODAS2.0 are similar to those obtained from HadISST data along the equator,showing the major large zonal-scale features such as the strong magnitude of seasonal cycle.The amplitude of SST anomaly standard deviation in the equatorial eastern Pacific is also closer to observations(HadISST) than NCEP GODAS does.Besides,the first two leading empirical orthogonal function(EOF) modes of the monthly SST anomalies over the tropical Pacific region are explored.The EOF1 pattern of BCC_GODAS2.0 captures a traditional El Ni o pattern,which improves magnitudes of the positive SST anomaly in the cold tongue of the eastern Pacific.The EOF2 pattern exhibits a El Ni o Modoki pattern.Comparatively,the EOF2 pattern of BCC_GODAS2.0 extends more strongly toward the subtropics.It also overcomes the problem that negative loadings are confined in the narrow equatorial eastern Pacific.Consequently,the magnitude and spatial distribution of the leading EOF patterns of BCC_GODAS2.0 are well consistent with those of HadISST.     

Feasibility study for joint retrieval of air density and ozone concentration profiles in the mesosphere using an ultraviolet limb-scan technique

For joint retrieval of vertical distributions of both air density and ozone concentration in the mesosphere which are two of the most important atmospheric parameters in this region, a retrieval scheme is suggested by using satellite limb scan observation at two UV wavelengths, i.e. 255 nm and 296 nm. The retrieval scheme is the modification of the direct method by Aruga and Heath with two UV wavelengths and two atmospheric parameters. Feasibility study was made based on simulated limb scan radiances computed with a single scattering radiative transfer algorithms of spherical geometry developed by the present authors and the inversion technique. Results of the simulations show that it is feasible to retrieve air density and ozone concentration vertical distributions on a global basis from satellite UV limb scan over the altitude range of 50 km～ 100 km with a vertical resolution of 1 km. The errors of the inferred profiles by using the joint inversion algorithm are greatly deduced, especially in the upper-mesosphere heights, compared with those by using the single inversion technique with a single wavelength.