Journal article
Global Relationship between Fronts and Warm Conveyor Belts and the Impact on Extreme Precipitation
Jennifer L Catto, Erica Madonna, Hanna Joos, Irina Rudeva, Ian Simmonds
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE | AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC | Published : 2015
Abstract
Extratropical cyclones are responsible for many extreme precipitation events in the midlatitudes. Warm conveyor belts (WCBs) and fronts are known to be related to the uplift and hence the precipitation within cyclones. The authors have investigated the link between WCBs and fronts and how such a link impacts the occurrence of extreme precipitation events. WCB trajectories have been calculated from the ERA-Interim dataset, and low-level (below 790 hPa) and midlevel (790-600 hPa) WCBs have been considered. These have been matched with objectively identified fronts (i.e., characterized by an overlap of WCB and front somewhere along the front). About 10% of cold fronts, 8% of warm fronts (identi..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council through the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
Awarded by Swiss National Science Foundation
Funding Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Australian Research Council through the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Grant DE140101305. Part of the work of EM has been funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Project 200021-130079). The study was also facilitated by a visit of EM to Melbourne University and of JLC to ETH Zurich. The front identification algorithm was kindly provided by Gareth Berry. The authors thank Heini Wernli for helpful and insightful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. ERA-Interim data are available online (http://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/). The editor and two reviewers are acknowledged for providing valuable suggestions that substantially improved this manuscript.