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Hydrometeors Distribution in Intense Precipitating Cloud Cells Over the Earth’s During Two Rainfall Seasons

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Abstract

In the present study, we used attenuated corrected radar reflectivity factor (Ze) and rain-drop size distribution (DSD) to investigate the hydrometeors distribution in the intense precipitating cloud cells (PCCs) from precipitation radar (PR) onboard on Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM). The DSD parameters consist of two variables, namely, mass-weighted mean diameter (Dm) in mm and normalized scaling parameters for hydrometeors concentration (Nw) in mm–1 m–3. We defined two types of PCCs, which are the proxies for the intense rainfall events. First PCC is termed as Cumulonimbus Towers (CbTs), which consist of Ze >  = 20 dBZ at 12 km altitude, and its base height must be less than 3 km altitude. We also defined intense convective clouds (ICCs), which consist of Ze > 30 (40) dBZ at 8 km (3 km), respectively, and are termed as ICC8 and ICC3, respectively. The spatial distribution reveals that continental areas consist of a higher frequency of CbTs and ICC8s compared to oceanic areas, whereas ICC3s are uniformly distributed over tropical land and oceanic areas. The DSD parameters reveal that intense PCCs have larger hydrometeors (Dm), whereas weaker (less Ze) vertical profiles consist of higher concentration (Nw) of smaller hydrometeors (Dm). Land consists of larger hydrometeors (Dm) compared to oceanic areas, and differences are higher in liquid phase regimes compared to mixed phase regimes. The vertical profiles of Ze, Dm and Nw are showing the higher regional differences among the different land-based areas, compared to various tropical ocean basins. Western Himalaya Foothills and Sierra De Cordoba consist of the strongest vertical profiles with the largest Dm on the Earth’s areas during JJAS and DJFM months, respectively.

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Acknowledgements

GPM Data (GES DISC DATASET: GPM DPR KU PRECIPITATION PROFILE 2A 1.5 HOURS 5 KM V07 (GPM_2AKU 07) (NASA.GOV)) and 3B42 (http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ mirador/presentNavigation.pl?tree=project&dataset= 3B42:%203-Hour%200.25%20x%200.25%20degree% 20merged%20TRMM%20and%20other%20satellite% 20estimates&project=TRMM&dataGroup=Gridded& version=007) data are taken from NASA’s Earth–Sun System Division website. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. TMI data were produced by Remote Sensing Systems, Inc., and were sponsored by the NASA Earth Sciences Division.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Research Centre, Indian Space Research Organization, Trivandrum, Kerala, 695022, India

    Shailendra Kumar

  2. Institute of Geophysics, 15012, Lima, Peru

    Jose Luis Flores‑Rojas, Aldo S. Moya-Álvarez, Daniel Martínez-Castro & Yamina Silva

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  1. Shailendra Kumar
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Contributions

SK helped in conceptualization, validation, methodology, data analysis, radar data concept, algorithm development and wrote the original draft; JLF was involved in data collection and edited the original draft; DM helped in concept and edited the manuscript; ASM edited the manuscript; YSV edited the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shailendra Kumar.

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Kumar, S., Flores‑Rojas, J.L., Moya-Álvarez, A.S. et al. Hydrometeors Distribution in Intense Precipitating Cloud Cells Over the Earth’s During Two Rainfall Seasons. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 52, 95–111 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-023-01805-x

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