Calendar Event Details
Seoung-Soo Lee
Affiliation: UMD - ESSIC
Event Date: Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Location: Building 33, G133
Time: 11:00 AM
Effects of aerosol on the spatiotemporal homogeneity of precipitation and associated heavy precipitation in urban areas
Industrialization and urbanization have been started and developed over the last century. Associated with this, there have been substantial increases in urban population. In 2010, 54 % of the whole population lived in urban areas. It is predicted that in 2050, 66 % of the whole population will live in urban areas. As a result, urban areas become the centers of economic activity and productivity. There have been increases in aerosol concentrations since industrialization over the globe and in particular, urban areas in East Asia have experienced such increases with a greater magnitude than in other regions. Increasing aerosol concentrations alter cloud microphysical properties such as cloud-particle size and autoconversion. Aerosol-induced changes in autoconversion in turn increase cloud-liquid mass as a source of evaporation and freezing. It has been shown that aerosol-induced increases in cloud-liquid mass and associated increases in freezing of cloud liquid can enhance parcel buoyancy and thus invigorate convection. The invigorated convection can enhance precipitation. Aerosol-induced increases in cloud-liquid mass and associated increases in evaporation can intensify gust fronts, which in turn intensify the subsequently developing convective clouds and enhance precipitation. Considering the high population and the economic productivity in urban areas, these types of aerosol-induced changes in precipitation, particularly in urban areas, can have important social and economic implications. Motivated by this, in this talk, aerosol-induced changes in precipitation in urban areas are explored using a cloud-system resolving model. In this exploration, it is investigated how increasing aerosol concentration alters the spatiotemporal distribution of precipitation, since this alteration frequently involves torrential rain as a representative form of extreme weather which has substantial negative impacts on human life and properties. For the investigation, we focus on feedbacks between aerosol, stability, dynamics, and microphysics, and their impacts on torrential rain in terms of its timing and location.
Posted or updated: Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Print-friendly page (new window) • Back to the Calendar