Collaborative Research: Improving Process-Level Understanding of Surface-Atmosphere Interactions Leading to Convection Initiation in the Central United States

合作研究：提高对导致美国中部对流启动的地表大气相互作用的过程级理解

基本信息

批准号：
2032358
负责人：
Trent Ford
金额：
$ 23.05万
依托单位：
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2021-01-01 至 2024-12-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2032358&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Collaborative Research Improving Process Level

项目摘要

Soil moisture is important for the climate system because it controls evaporation, transpiration, and energy movement from the land to the atmosphere. Through these mechanisms, soil moisture can influence the timing and intensity of precipitation at daily to seasonal timescales. However, there is a lack of scientific consensus on the sign, strength, and overall importance of soil moisture-precipitation feedbacks. This project will improve our understanding of the land and atmosphere processes that are important to convection initiation and precipitation during the warm season (May to September) in the central United States. The knowledge gained from this project will be used to improve the accuracy of simulations in operational weather and climate models. The project will provide undergraduate students, a graduate student, and postdoctoral researchers with training in research, science communication, and public outreach.This project will assess the nature and strength of soil moisture feedbacks on convective precipitation in the central United States using a coupled observation-modeling framework to examine the physical processes linking the soil and boundary layer atmosphere. The objectives of the project are to: (1) evaluate whether convection occurs preferentially over wet or dry soils in the central United States, (2) quantify the influence of soil moisture on convection and precipitation using process-based metrics and high quality land and atmosphere observations, and (3) evaluate the response of convection and precipitation to changes in soil moisture conditions using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. This project will utilize soil moisture observations from the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network and hundreds of thousands of convection events identified by the ThOR algorithm. This combination of in situ observations and the immense sample size of convective events provides an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate soil moisture – precipitation feedbacks. The results of this study will lead to improvements in the parameterization schemes that are used in weather and climate models. This study focuses on a region that has the densest land-surface and boundary layer observations, but the process-based understanding of land-atmosphere interactions and their role in modulating the climate is readily transferable to other regions around the world.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

土壤湿度对于气候系统很重要，因为它控制着蒸发、蒸腾和从陆地到大气的能量移动，通过这些机制，土壤湿度可以影响每日到季节时间尺度的降水时间和强度。关于土壤湿度-降水反馈的迹象、强度和总体重要性缺乏科学共识。该项目将提高我们对温暖季节（五月至九月）期间对流启动和降水重要的陆地和大气过程的理解。中央联合从该项目中获得的知识将用于提高业务天气和气候模型的模拟准确性。该项目将为本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员提供研究、科学传播和公共宣传方面的培训。该项目将使用耦合观测建模框架来评估美国中部对流降水的土壤湿度反馈的性质和强度，以检查连接土壤和边界层大气的物理过程。该项目的目标是：（1））评估对流是否优先发生美国中部的潮湿或干燥土壤，(2) 使用基于过程的指标和高质量的土地和大气观测来量化土壤湿度对对流和降水的影响，以及 (3) 评估对流和降水对变化的响应该项目将利用国家协调土壤湿度监测网络的土壤湿度观测以及 ThOR 算法识别的数十万个对流事件。巨大的对流事件的样本量为评估土壤湿度-降水反馈提供了前所未有的机会。这项研究的结果将改进天气和气候模型中使用的参数化方案。 -地表和边界层观测，但对陆地-大气相互作用及其在调节气候中的作用的基于过程的理解很容易转移到世界其他地区。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过评估被认为值得支持利用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。