Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Logo
Menu
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Organizational Charts
    • Virtual Tours
    • EESA Strategic Vision
  • Our People
    • A-Z People
    • Alumni Network
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • IDEA Working Group
    • Paul A. Witherspoon
    • Postdocs & Early Careers
    • Search by Expertise
  • Careers & Opportunities
    • Careers
    • Intern Pilot w/CSUEB
    • Mentorship Program
    • Recognition & Funding Opps
    • EESA Mini Grants
    • S&E Metrics for Performance and Promotion
    • Student Opportunities
    • Supervisor EnRichment (SupER) Program
    • Promotion Metrics (Scientific)
  • Research
    • Area-Wide Program Domain
      • Earth AI & Data
    • Our Divisions
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
      • Environmental & Biological Systems Science
        • Programs
        • Environmental Remediation & Water Resources
        • Ecosystems Biology Program
        • Bioenergy
      • Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
        • Terrestrial Ecosystem Science
      • Climate & Atmosphere Processes
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
      • Earth Systems & Society
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
    • Energy Geosciences Division
      • Discovery Geosciences
        • Programs
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geophysics
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geochemistry
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Isotope
      • Energy Resources and Carbon Management
        • Programs
        • Carbon Removal & Mineralization Program
        • Carbon Storage Program
        • Geothermal Systems
        • Hydrocarbon Science
        • Nuclear Energy & Waste
      • Resilient Energy, Water & Infrastructure
        • Programs
        • Water-Energy
        • Critical Infrastructure
        • Environmental Resilience
        • Grid-Scale Subsurface Energy Storage
        • National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI)
    • Projects
    • Research at a Glance
    • Publication Lists
    • Centers and Resources
    • Technologies & National User Programs
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
    • Operations
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
    • Earth & Environment Newsletter
  • Intranet
  • Safety
    • EESA Safety
  • FoW
  • Search

  • all
  • people
  • events
  • posts
  • pages
  • projects
  • publications

EESA Identifies Potential Power of Climate Model Diagnostic Tool To Improve Global Extreme Storm Predictions2 min read

by Christina Procopiou on March 28, 2019

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Climate Sciences Department

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

 

By adapting scaling formulas that are traditionally used to diagnose the overall behavior of extreme rainfall events in a warming climate, atmospheric scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Irvine have demonstrated that the potential exists for these formulas to capture the dynamics of individual rainstorms globally.

Heavy rainstorms that can cause floods, cyclones, and other damage are expected to last longer and bring higher winds as temperatures rise. These convective storms are predicted to become especially intense in the tropics, due to its added moisture and greater atmospheric instability. Yet current global climate models fail to accurately replicate extreme rainfall patterns, according to previous research led by Bill Collins, director of Berkeley Lab’s Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division.

Using scaling formulas, UC Berkeley graduate student Benjamin Fildier, Collins, and colleagues test the ability of a standard computer model of global climate to simulate heavy rainstorms (the Community Atmosphere Model version 5, or CAM). They did so by comparing this model to SPCAM, a superparameterized version of CAM that incorporates a cloud-resolving model (This complex, SPCAM, approach had previously been found to improve rainfall statistics by better simulating the processes involved in shallow and deep-convective cloud formations.) A paper describing their research appears in the December issue of the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.

The scientists then compared CAM and SPCAM performance using scaling formulas that are normally applied to estimating the changing dynamics of extreme rainstorms with climate change. These formulas are designed to approximate the storm’s rainfall intensity from the knowledge of dynamic and thermodynamic variables such as vertical updraft velocity and temperature.

These formulas had never been used before to simply test and compare climate models’ ability to simulate severe rainstorm events. To Fildier and colleagues’ surprise, these simple formulas were able to mimic the complex behavior of CAM and SPCAM at simulating the amount of rain produced by severe storms over broad scales of time and space.

The success of the scaling formulas at estimating severe rainstorms’ intensity, frequency and location might also apply outside of the tropics. As a result, the Berkeley Lab scientists’ approach could broadly permit an easier characterization of extreme rainfall events in future climates, based on the evolution of other physical quantities (such as temperature and updraft velocities). Moreover, the findings show that this approach works for extreme storms ranging in size between 200 km and 2,000 km.

News & Events

EESA Scientists Investigate How Tropical Soil Microbes Might Respond to Future Droughts2 min read

March 14, 2023

As the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems on Earth, tropical rainforests are just as critical to sustaining environmental and human systems as they are beautiful. Their unique climate with high temperatures, humidity, and precipitation promotes high primary productivity, which offsets high respiration, resulting in these ecosystems being one of the largest carbon sinks on Earth,…

Doubling Protected Lands for Biodiversity Could Require Tradeoffs With Other Land Uses, Study Finds4 min read

March 3, 2023

This article first appeared on lbl.gov. Scientists show how 30% protected land targets may not safeguard biodiversity hotspots and may negatively affect other sectors – and how data and analysis can support effective conservation and land use planning Although more than half the world’s countries have committed to protecting at least 30% of land and oceans…

Six Berkeley Lab Scientists Named AAAS Fellows6 min read

This article first appeared at lbl.gov Six researchers have been elected into the 2022 class of the American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced their 2022 Fellows, including six scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This lifetime honor, which follows…

Kenichi Soga named to National Academy of Engineers1 min read

February 23, 2023

Faculty scientist Kenichi Soga was named to the National Academy of Engineering (NA), one of the highest honors that can be achieved as an American engineer. Soga is the Donald H. McLaughlin Chair in Mineral Engineering and a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and has conducted groundbreaking research from infrastructure sensing to…

  • Our People
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • Organizational Charts
    • Postdocs
    • Staff Only
    • Search by Expertise
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
  • Research
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
    • Energy Geosciences Division
    • Program Domains
      • Programs
    • Projects
  • Contact
    • 510 486 6455
    • eesawebmaster@lbl.gov
    • Our Identity

Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo DOE Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo UC

A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Managed by the University of California

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · Earth and Environmental Sciences Area · Privacy & Security Notice