Identification

Title

Comparing distributions of overshooting convection in HRRR forecasts to observations

Abstract

Overshooting convection can significantly impact the chemical and radiative properties of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere through the transport of various chemical species. These impacts include enhancements of water vapor and ozone-depleting halocarbons, which both have important consequences for climate change. Therefore, accurate prediction of the Earth's climate system requires convective overshooting to be included. To better understand how convective transport is represented in current state-of-the-art models, approximately 75,000 individual updrafts in the central and eastern United States are analyzed from High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) simulations and NEXRAD radar observations during May and July 2021. Distributions of echo top potential temperatures and heights, as well as diurnal cycles of overshooting frequency, are compared to observations. These distributions show mean, median, and maximum echo tops 2-3 km lower than observations, both in absolute and tropopause-relative space, with evidence of updrafts losing momentum too rapidly above the tropopause. Diurnal cycles show accurate times of maximum and minimum overshooting, but significant errors at model initialization and evidence that some simulated overshoots continue too late into the overnight hours. Despite these deficiencies, distributions of simulated levels of maximum detrainment show decent agreement with observations. All results, including the severe underprediction of echo top heights, persist at shorter forecast lead times. This indicates a need to improve representation of overshooting storms in weather and climate models, even those that are convection-permitting, or introduce a transport parameterization.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7j96bmp

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2024-08-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact