EOL seminar presented by Dr J.H. Marsham, Institute for Atmospheric Science, The University of Leeds, UK
The Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP) took place in southern England during the summers of 2004 and 2005. The project aimed to improve our understanding of the processes responsible for the initiation of convective storms in the UK. This was motivated by the frequently poor forecasts of convective precipitation and a need to evaluate the new generation of high-resolution numerical-weather-prediction models, which crudely resolve convective storms. Improving these forecasts would significantly improve our abilities to forecast flooding in the UK.
This talk will provide an overview of some of the results from the CSIP field campaigns. These campaigns took place in a region characterised by low orography (less than 300 m above-sea-level) in the maritime mid-latitude climate of the UK and so allowed a different range of initiation mechanisms to be observed compared with IHOP_2002. As expected, initiation due to convergence driven by coastal effects was often prominent. Two case-studies showing more subtle mechanisms of initiation will be presented. These have been analysed in some detail using observational data and large-eddy model runs. In the first case, secondary initiation occurred as a result of a cold pool outflow and convectively generated gravity waves. Primary initiation was controlled by variable cirrus cloud cover in the second case. Finally, ongoing work studying the effects thin lids and dry layers on the development of convective storms will be described.
Wednesday, July 19 at 3:30pm in FL2-1022.
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