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| Titel |
Detailed flow, hydrometeor and lightning characteristics of an isolated thunderstorm during COPS |
| VerfasserIn |
K. Schmidt, M. Hagen, H. Höller, E. Richard, H. Volkert |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1680-7316
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ; 12, no. 15 ; Nr. 12, no. 15 (2012-08-01), S.6679-6698 |
| Datensatznummer |
250011351
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/acp-12-6679-2012.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
The three-hour life-cycle of the isolated thunderstorm on 15 July 2007 during
the Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study (COPS) is
documented in detail, with a special emphasis on the rapid development and
mature phases. Remote sensing techniques as 5-min rapid scans from
geostationary satellites, combined velocity retrievals from up to four
Doppler-radars, the polarimetric determination of hydrometeors and
spatio-temporal occurrences of lightning strokes are employed to arrive at a
quantification of the physical parameters of this, during the COPS period,
singular event.
Inner cloud flow fields are available from radar multiple Doppler analyses at
four consecutive times separated by 15 min-intervals. They contain
horizontal winds of around 15 m s−1 and updrafts exceeding
5 m s−1, the latter collocated with lightning strokes. Reflectivity
and polarimetric data indicate the existence of hail at the 2 km level
around 14:40. Furthermore, polarimetric and Doppler radar
variables indicate intense hydrometeor variability and turbulence
corresponding to an enhanced variance of the retrieved 3-D wind fields.
Profiles of flow and hydrometeor statistics over the entire cloud volume
provide reference data for high-resolution numerical weather prediction runs
in research mode.
The study embarks from two movie-loops of geostationary satellite imagery (as
Supplement), which provide an intuitive distinction of six phases making up
the entire life-cycle of the thunderstorm. It concludes with a triple-image
loop, juxtaposing a close-up of the cloud motion as seen by Meteosat,
simulated brightness temperature (as a proxy for clouds seen by the infrared
satellite channel), and a perspective view on the model generated system of
cloud cells. The simulation suggests that several updrafts fed from a low
level convergence line eventually removed the convective inhibition and set
deep convection in motion. A shear line in the radial velocity relative to
the Feldberg radar site shows good agreement beween observation and
simulation, whereas the onset location of deep convection exhibits a
horizontal discrepancy of 15 km. A quantitative schematic of the isolated
thunderstorm synthesizes all retrieved characteristics. |
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