Advances in Geosciences www.adv-geosci.net 1680-7340 1680-7359 20 Observation, Prediction and Verification of Precipitation (EGU Session 2008) 2009 10.5194/adgeo-20-33-2009 http://www.adv-geosci.net/20/33/2009/ http://www.adv-geosci.net/20/33/2009/adgeo-20-33-2009.html http://www.adv-geosci.net/20/33/2009/adgeo-20-33-2009.pdf 33 38 2009-03-16 Intensity-dependent parameterization of elevation effects in precipitation analysis T. Haiden thomas.haiden@zamg.ac.at G. Pistotnik Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, Vienna, Austria Elevation effects in long-term (monthly to inter-annual) precipitation data have been widely studied and are taken into account in the regionalization of point-like precipitation amounts by using methods like external drift kriging and cokriging. On the daily or hourly time scale, precipitation-elevation gradients are more variable, and difficult to parameterize. For example, application of the annual relative precipitation-elevation gradient to each 12-h sub-period reproduces the annual total, but at the cost of a large root-mean-square error. If the precipitation-elevation gradient is parameterized as a function of precipitation rate, the error can be substantially reduced. It is shown that the form of the parameterization suggested by the observations conforms to what one would expect based on the physics of the orographic precipitation process (the seeder-feeder mechanism). At low precipitation rates, orographic precipitation is "conversion-limited", thus increasing roughly linearly with precipitation rate. At higher rates, orographic precipitation becomes "condensation-limited" thus leading to an additive rather than multiplicative orographic precipitation enhancement. Also it is found that for large elevation differences it becomes increasingly important to take into account those events where the mountain station receives precipitation but the valley station remains dry. Ahrens, B.: Distance in spatial interpolation of daily rain gauge data, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 10, 197–208, 2006. Barry, R. G.: Mountain Weather and Climate, Routledge, 313 pp., 1992. Basist, A., Bell, G. D., and Meentemeyer, V.: Statistical relationships between topography and precipitation, J. Climate, 7, 1305–1315, 1994. Cotton, W. R. and Anthes, R. A.: Storm and Cloud Dynamics, Academic Press, San Diego, 880 pp., 1989. Daly, C., Neilson, R. P., and Phillips, D. J.: A statistical-topographic model for mapping climatological precipitation over mountainous terrain, J. Appl. Meteor., 33, 140–158, 1994. Frei, C. and Schär, C.: A precipitation climatology of the Alps from high-resolution rain-gauge observations, Int. J. Climatol., 18, 873–900, 1998. Goovaerts, P.: Geostatistical approaches for incorporating elevation into the spatial interpolation of rainfall, J. Hydrol., 228, 113–129, 2000. Guan, H., Wilson, J. L., and Makhnin, O.: Geostatistical mapping of mountain precipitation incorporating autosearched effects of terrain and climatic characteristics, J. Hydromet., 6, 1018–1031, 2005. Haiden, T.: Analytical solution of washout in stratiform clouds. Contrib. Atmos. Phys., 68, 3–14, 1995. Haiden, T., Kann, A., Pistotnik, G., Stadlbacher, K., and Wittmann, C.: Integrated Nowcasting through Comprehensive Analysis (INCA) – System description, ZAMG report, p. 60, http://www.zamg.ac.at/fix/INCA_ystem.pdf, 2009. Hunter, R. D. and Meentemeyer, R. K.: Climatologically aided mapping of daily precipitation and temperature, J. Appl. Meteor., 44, 1501–1510, 2005. Kiefer Weisse, A. and Bois, P.: Topographic effects on statistical characteristics of heavy rainfall and mapping in the French Alps, J. Appl. Meteor., 40, 720–740, 2001. Komma, J., Reszler, C., Blöschl, G., and Haiden, T.: Ensemble prediction of floods - catchment non-linearity and forecast probabilities, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 7, 431–444, 2007. Sharples, J. J., Hutchinson, M. F., and Jellett, D. R.: On the horizontal scale of elevation dependence of Australian monthly precipitation, J. Appl. Meteor., 44, 1850–1865, 2005. Skoda, G. and Filipovic, N.: Multi-data precipitation analysis. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Final report, Vienna, 17 pp., 2007. Smith, R. B.: The influence of mountains on the atmosphere, Adv. Geophys., 21, Academic Press, 87–230, 1979.