Quantifying the Link Between Organized Convection and Extreme Precipitation

ATMOSPHERIC CONVECTION IS A CRUCIAL COMPONENT OF THE EARTH SYSTEM AND IS CENTRAL TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF WEATHER AND CLIMATE. HOWEVER THE PHYSICS OF CONVECTION REMAIN DIFFICULT TO ENCAPSULATE IN PARAMETERIZATIONS USED BY CLIMATE AND WEATHER MODELS AND AS HAS BEEN OFTEN DEMONSTRATED DETAILS IN THESE SCHEMES HAVE PROFOUND IMPACTS ON THE QUALITY OF WEATHER FORECASTS AND CLIMATE PREDICTIONS. INCREASED HORIZONTAL RESOLUTION IN CLIMATE MODELS IS DEEMED NECESSARY TO MORE REALISTICALLY SIMULATE CIRCULATIONS THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH ORGANIZED CONVECTION. A COMMON ASSERTION IS THAT EXTREME PRECIPITATION EVENTS ARE STRONGLY ASSOCIATED WITH ORGANIZED CONVECTION SUCH AS TROPICAL CYCLONES EXTRATROPICAL CYCLONES ATMOSPHERIC RIVERS AND MESOSCALE CONVECTIVE SYSTEMS. ALTHOUGH SUPPORTED BY ANECDOTE AND INTUITION THE EVIDENCE LINKING EXTREME PRECIPITATION TO ORGANIZED CONVECTION IS SURPRISINGLY POORLY ESTABLISHED IN BOTH OBSERVATIONS AND NUMERICAL MODELS. THIS PROPOSAL AIMS TO CHARACTERIZE THE LINK BETWEEN ORGANIZED CONVECTION AND EXTREME PRECIPITATION IN HIGH-RESOLUTION (BOTH TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL) SATELLITE PRODUCTS FROM NASA'S GLOBAL PRECIPITATION MEASUREMENT (GPM) MISSION AS WELL AS THE TROPICAL RAINFALL MEASURING MISSION (TRMM). THIS NEW ANALYSIS WILL BE APPLIED TO HIGH RESOLUTION MODEL INTERCOMPARISON PROJECT (HIGHRESMIP) CLIMATE MODEL SIMULATIONS AND CONVENTIONAL-RESOLUTION COUPLED MODEL INTERCOMPARISON PROJECT 6 (CMIP6) SIMULATIONS AND COMPARE THEM AGAINST NASA PMM PRODUCTS AS THE OBSERVATIONAL BASELINE. THIS WORK WILL INCLUDE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW OBSERVATIONAL METHODOLOGIES TO STUDY ORGANIZED CONVECTION AND EVALUATION OF NEXT-GENERATION CLIMATE MODEL SIMULATIONS SUCH AS THOSE USED FOR PROJECTIONS OF FUTURE CHANGES IN WEATHER AND CLIMATE. THE SPECIFIC RESEARCH TASKS ARE: 1. IDENTIFY ORGANIZED PRECIPITATION EVENTS FROM THE GPM AND TRMM PRODUCTS USING A PRECIPITATION-FOCUSED APPROACH. 2. CLASSIFY ORGANIZED PRECIPITATION EVENTS BASED ON OVERLAP BETWEEN PRECIPITATION- AND DYNAMICALLY-BASED TRACKING ALGORITHMS. 3. CONFRONT STANDARD- AND HIGH-RESOLUTION MODELS WITH OBSERVATIONS OF ORGANIZED PRECIPITATION.