1.Key Laboratory of Cloud-Precipitation Physics and Severe Storms, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China 2.Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China 3.Beijing Municipal Weather Forecast Center, Beijing 100089, China 4.National Meteorological Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China Manuscript received: 2019-04-11 Manuscript revised: 2019-06-22 Manuscript accepted: 2019-07-22 Abstract:Warm-sector heavy rainfall (WSHR) events in China have been investigated for many years. Studies have investigated the synoptic weather conditions during WSHR formation, the categories and general features, the triggering mechanism, and structural features of mesoscale convective systems during these rainfall events. The main results of WSHR studies in recent years are summarized in this paper. However, WSHR caused by micro- to mesoscale systems often occurs abruptly and locally, making both numerical model predictions and objective forecasts difficult. Further research is needed in three areas: (1) The mechanisms controlling WSHR events need to be understood to clarify the specific effects of various factors and indicate the influences of these factors under different synoptic background circulations. This would enable an understanding of the mechanisms of formation, maintenance, and organization of the convections in WSHR events. (2) In addition to South China, WSHR events also occur during the concentrated summer precipitation in the Yangtze River?Huaihe River Valley and North China. A high spatial and temporal resolution dataset should be used to analyze the distribution and environmental conditions, and to further compare the differences and similarities of the triggering and maintenance mechanisms of WSHR events in different regions. (3) More studies of the mechanisms are required, as well as improvements to the model initial conditions and physical processes based on multi-source observations, especially the description of the triggering process and the microphysical parameterization. This will improve the numerical prediction of WSHR events. Keywords: warm-sector heavy rainfall, synoptic weather conditions, triggering mechanism, South China 摘要:中国****针对暖区暴雨的研究已有几十年的历史,主要研究了暖区暴雨的形成环流背景条件、分类、以及中尺度对流系统触发机理和结构特征。本文回顾了近年来暖区暴雨的主要研究成果。暖区暴雨主要由中小尺度对流系统引发,具有明显的突发性和局地性特征,数值模式预报和客观预报的预报难度仍然很大。今后需要在以下三个方面继续开展研究:(1)深入了解我国暖区暴雨的形成机理,揭示各种因子的具体影响,并指出这些因子在不同天气背景环流下的不同影响。这将有助于理解引发暖区暴雨的对流系统的形成、维持和组织机制。(2)除华南地区外,江淮流域和华北地区夏季降水集中期间也有暖区暴雨过程发生。应利用高时空分辨率的数据集分析我国不同地区暖区暴雨的分布和发生环境条件,进一步比较不同地区暖区暴雨事件触发和维持机制的异同。(3)除了机理研究,还需要开展如何利用多源观测改进数值模式的初值和物理过程,特别是触发过程的描述和微物理参数化过程,这些研究将有利于提高暖区暴雨数值预报的准确率。 关键词:暖区暴雨, 天气尺度环流条件, 触发机理, 华南
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2.1. Definition and objective identification of WSHR
Atkinson and Smithson (1972) found that precipitation was mainly located near warm fronts and in the warm sector within a certain distance of a warm front in England and Wales, but no specific definition of warm-sector rainfall was proposed. The high frequency of WSHR events in South China has the following features (Lin et al., 2006): (1) severe rainfall occurs under the background environmental conditions of high temperature, high humidity, and strong instability; (2) the rainfall is concentrated over several hours; (3) the rainfall has a smaller coverage than frontal heavy rainfall, with horizontal scales from dozens to hundreds of kilometers. Some previous studies have defined WSHR (Tao, 1980; Huang et al., 1986; Lin et al., 2006), but there are no objective criteria for identifying WSHR events. Liu et al. (2019) studied a 34-year dataset of heavy rainfall in South China and quantitatively defined the criteria for WSHR events: (1) No frontal systems appear in vertical cross sections, the rainfall areas are influenced by a southerly wind in the middle and lower troposphere, and the distance to the surface northerly wind is more than 200 km. (2) When frontal systems occur in the vertical cross sections, the distance between the precipitation and front is more than 200 km. According to these criteria, 177 WSHR events were identified objectively, which occurred from April to September during 1982 to 2015 (Fig. 1), which accounted for 16.86% of the selected severe heavy rainfall events. Most WSHR events occurred in the pre-rainy season (April to June), and the peak appeared in June, which was consistent with the results of previous studies (Huang et al., 1986; Ding et al., 2011; Chen et al., 2012a). It was also found that most of the WSHR events in April to June occurred in Guangdong Province, while events in July to September mainly occurred in Guangxi Province (Liu et al., 2019). There were fewer WSHR events in inland locations than in the eastern coastal areas (Fig. 2a). Four main WSHR precipitation areas were identified (Fig. 2a): the coastal area in Guangxi (centered on Qinzhou); the mountainous area in northern Guangdong (centered on Longmen); the coastal region in southern Guangdong (centered on Yangjiang and Enping); and the coastal area in eastern Guangdong (centered on Shanwei). In Guangxi Province, the frequency of WSHR events was lower and the precipitation was weaker in inland areas compared to the coast regions (Fig. 2b), with precipitation being stronger in individual coastal stations than in inland stations. In the inland regions, the precipitation in Guangdong was stronger than that in Guangxi, and the rainfall in coastal regions of Guangdong was the heaviest among the four main WSHR areas. Figure1. Monthly variation of WSHR events from 1982 to 2015. The cyan, green, and blue columns show the number of WSHR events in Guangdong Province, Guangxi Autonomous Region, and all regions, respectively.
Figure2. The locations of selected WSHR stations in South China from 1982 to 2015, and (a) the frequency of occurrence and (b) maximum precipitation (units: mm). “QZ” “YJ”, “EP”, “LM”, and “SW” represent Qinzhou, Yangjiang, Enping, Longmen, and Shanwei stations, respectively. [Reprinted from (Liu et al., 2019)]
2 2.2. Synoptic weather patterns -->
2.2. Synoptic weather patterns
For operational forecasting in China, the forecaster often determines an occurrence of WSHR according to the synoptic weather situation, as most WSHR cannot be predicted successfully by numerical models. Therefore, many studies have focused on the weather systems and environmental conditions that produce WSHR in South China (Huang et al., 1986; Lin et al, 2006; Miao et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2018). Huang et al. (1986) summarized heavy rainfall in four types of weather systems: warm wind shear line, the LLJ along coastlines, the prefrontal LLJ, and cold fronts or quasi-stationary fronts. Forecasters in South China have categorized the synoptic weather systems influencing WSHR events into three types (Lin et al., 2006): backflow heavy rainfall caused by converging flows or warm and wet wind shear behind a transformed cold high pressure system; heavy rainfall caused by a strong southwestern monsoon surge or southwestern LLJ, and heavy rainfall produced by the upper-level trough and subtropical LLJ. The backflow WSHR was not included in the categories proposed by He et al. (2016). Based on previous research and numerous case studies, Liu et al. (2019) divided the synoptic patterns of heavy rainfall into four types: wind shear, low vortex, southern wind, and backflow. The wind shear and low vortex types of heavy rainfall were mainly concentrated in June and July (Fig. 3), while the frequency of southern wind type heavy rainfall was similar from April to July and the backflow type occurred in April to the middle of May (Fig. 3). It was also found that different types of WSHR could influence the weather in different regions of South China. The low vortex type of heavy rainfall mainly occurred along the coastline of Guangxi Province, while the backflow heavy rainfall often occurred in the coastal regions of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province during the spring. Figure3. Monthly variation of four types of WSHR events in South China. The blue column is the shear line type; the cyan column is the low vortex type; the green column is the south wind type; the yellow column is the backflow type. [Reprinted from (Liu et al., 2019)]
Under the control of the above-mentioned weather systems, synoptic circulations are favorable for the occurrence of convective systems, such as large amounts of convective available potential energy (CAPE, greater than 800 J kg?1), abundant water vapor, and thick convective unstable layers. Among the key environmental parameters of the four types of WSHR, CAPE in the low vortex type is the strongest, but is the weakest in the backflow type (Liu, 2018). It is possible that all the backflow type events occurred in spring, with strong baroclinity, and the dynamic forcing played a more important role than thermal forcing. However, for the 0?3 km vertical wind shear, the warm wind shear line type was the strongest.
2 2.3. MCSs and trigger mechanisms for WSHR -->
2.3. MCSs and trigger mechanisms for WSHR
Generally, WSHR is produced by MCSs related to certain weather systems and environmental conditions. The triggering of WSHR events in South China shows different features in different situations (Zhao et al., 2007; Luo et al., 2017; Du and Chen, 2018). Since the relevant triggering mechanism locally is far from the obvious synoptic forcing and/or cold air, rainfall forecasting has been a challenge and has attracted wide attention (Chen et al., 2014, 2015; Wang et al., 2014; Wu and Luo, 2016; Du and Chen, 2018). The triggering mechanisms are the key scientific uncertainty associated with MCSs. Generally, there are two kinds of triggering mechanism: (1) the inhomogeneous underlying surface layer, such as the wave or lifting effect triggered by topography and/or land?sea contrast (Xu et al., 2012; Chen et al., 2014, 2015, 2016a), and (2) the atmospheric perturbation instability (Wilson and Schreiber, 1986; Weckwerth and Wakimoto, 1992; Ding and Shen, 1998; Moncrieff and Liu, 1999), density current (Houston, 2017), and the gravity wave (Liu et al., 2012; Xu et al., 2013). The terrain in South China is high in the north and low in the south, and features various mountain ranges, hills, and a convoluted coastline. The terrain blocking, lifting, and abundance of water vapor near the oceans complicates the triggering mechanism of WSHR events in South China. The specific mechanisms are still unclear, and it is difficult for NWP models to forecast these heavy rainfall events. Huang et al. (1986) proved that WSHR generally occurs under a southerly wind in the low troposphere. When the mountain direction is perpendicular to the low-level southerly wind, the lifted warm and wet air can cause severe convective storms or strengthen the precipitation. According to the statistical results, the WSHR in South China occurred more frequently in coastal areas than in inland areas (Liu et al., 2019). Some studies have indicated that the topography and land?sea contrast affected the triggering mechanism associated with WSHR near the coastal region (Chen et al., 2014, 2015; Du and Chen, 2018). An observational analysis of surface station, satellite, and radar datasets demonstrated that the diurnal variation of the rainfall in the eastern coastal areas is very significant (Yu et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2009, 2013a, 2014, 2015; Jiang et al., 2017; Zheng et al., 2019), and the diurnal variation of deep convection and rainfall is related to the circulation of land?sea breezes (Zheng and Chen, 2013; Chen et al., 2015, 2016a). The interaction between convergence of land?sea breezes and topography near coastal areas enhances the intensity of precipitation (Chen et al., 2016a). Additionally, a relatively high topography and the trumpet-shaped topography in inland South China could also induce WSHR and enhance the total precipitation (Sun and Zhao, 2002a, b; Xia et al., 2006, Xia and Zhao, 2009; Tu et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2019). These previous studies suggest that topography and land?sea contrast are important factors impacting the intensity and distribution of WHSR events in South China. Besides the influences of topography and land?sea contrast, the MCSs that produce WSHR events are mostly associated with the mesoscale convergence line and the LLJ, and other disturbances in the boundary layer (Lin et al., 2006). It has been suggested that warm-sector convection could be triggered by the low-level convergence associated with boundary layer processes and thin layers of cold air intruding into the boundary layer in South China (Sun and Zhao, 2002a, b; Xia et al., 2006). Heavy rainfall in South China is often accompanied by an LLJ or boundary layer jet (BLJ) (Chen and Yu, 1988; Chen et al., 2005, 2006; Tu et al., 2014). An LLJ or BLJ was also found to be significant in the generation of heavy rainfall (Tao and Chen, 1987; Zhang et al., 2000; Du and Chen, 2018, 2019; Du and Rotunno, 2018; Xue et al., 2018). Du and Chen (2018, 2019) found that the WSHR is associated with the southerly BLJ occurring over the northern region of the South China Sea. Moreover, the synoptic system-related LLJ and a BLJ, and their coupling, have key effects on triggering mechanisms, while the BLJ colliding with terrain may enhance coastal convergence for amplifying triggering mechanisms (Du and Chen, 2018, 2019). Moreover, the cold pool, the mesoscale outflow boundaries or cold dome, due to the precipitation, has been shown to have a strong effect on triggering convection (Wang et al., 2014; Wu and Luo, 2016; Tu et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2018). Especially, the mesoscale outflow boundaries over South China present weak surface out?ows with little movement, which is crucial to the generation of long-lasting extreme rainfall events (Liu et al., 2018). Some observational analyses and numerical simulations have been conducted on these MCSs, and the three-dimensional structure of convective systems and their evolution has been revealed (Zhang et al., 2000; Sun and Zhao, 2002a, b; Xia et al., 2006; Zhao et al., 2007). As WSHR events are usually not directly affected by synoptic forcings and/or cold air, accurate prediction in numeral models is a big challenge (Chen and Xu, 2011; Zhang et al., 2016; Huang and Luo, 2017; Wu et al., 2018a). The predictability of MCSs is also an important scientific topic within the field of mesoscale meteorology, with NWP models used to investigate the predictability of MCSs (Anthes et al., 1985; Cintineo and Stensrud, 2013). Chen and Xu (2011) found that the forecasting error and dispersion of WSHR events in South China was larger than that for heavy rainfall in the Yangtze River?Huaihe Valley, which led to large uncertainties in simulation results. In terms of error growth and ensemble forecasts, the numerical predictability of heavy rainfall in South China is lower than this in the Yangtze River?Huaihe Valley. The errors associated with water vapor transport and the humidity of the initial field have large impacts on the predictability of convective systems and its rainfall. Liu et al. (2005) indicated that the heating and water vapor transport from the convective systems in the South China Sea could influence synoptic circulation and the evolution of convection in South China. Many studies have proved that the humidity error is the largest uncertainty in the initial conditions and has a large impact on convection over South China (Wu et al., 2013, 2018a; Zhang et al., 2016; Lu et al., 2018). Lu et al. (2018) indicated that convective systems in the South China Sea play an important role in the convection and precipitation over the coastal areas of South China. Zhang et al. (2016) found that the assimilation of wind profile data significantly improved the short-range prediction of WSHR in southern China in terms of both intensity and location because of the improved representation of wind and moisture at lower levels in the analyses. Bao et al. (2017) demonstrated that assimilating the radial velocity of operational weather radar near the South China coast in both deterministic and probabilistic experiments generally improves the prediction of heavy-rain-producing MCSs.