Comparison of the Moist Parcel‐in‐Cell (MPIC) model with Large‐Eddy Simulation for an idealised cloud

The ascent of a moist thermal is used to test a recently developed essentially Lagrangian model for simulating moist convection. In this Moist‐Parcel‐In‐Cell (MPIC) model, a number of parcels are used to represent the flow in each grid cell. This has the advantage that the parcels provide an efficient and explicit representation of subgrid scale flow. The model is compared against Eulerian Large‐Eddy Simulations with a version of the Met Office NERC Cloud model (MONC) that solves the same equations in a more traditional Eulerian scheme. Both models perform the same idealised simulation of the effects of latent heat release and evaporation, rather than a specific atmospheric regime. Dynamical features evolve similarly throughout the development of the thermal using both approaches. Subgrid scale properties of small‐scale eddies captured by the MPIC model can be explicitly reconstructed on a finer grid. MPIC simulations thus resolve smaller features when using the same grid spacing as MONC, which is useful for detailed studies of turbulence in clouds. The convergence of bulk properties is also used to compare the two models. Most of these properties converge rapidly, though the probability distribution function of liquid water converges only slowly with grid resolution in MPIC. This may imply that the current implementation of the parcel mixing mechanism underestimates small‐scale mixing. Finally, it is shown how Lagrangian parcels can be used to study the origin of cloud air in a consistent manner in MPIC

How important are aerosol–fog interactions for the successful modelling of nocturnal radiation fog?

Forecasting and modelling fog formation, development, and dissipation is a significant challenge. Fog dynamics involve subtle interactions between small‐scale turbulence, radiative transfer and microphysics. Recent studies have highlighted the role of aerosol and related cloud microphysical properties in the evolution of fog. In this article, we investigate this role using very high‐resolution large eddy simulations coupled with a newly developed multi‐moment cloud microphysics scheme (CASIM), which has been designed to model aerosol–cloud interactions. The simulation results demonstrate the sensitivity of the fog structure to the properties of the aerosol population (e.g. number concentration). This study also demonstrates the importance of the treatment of aerosol activation in fog formation and discusses future work required to improve the representation of aerosol–fog interactions for simulations of fog

Self-management of chronic pain in Malaysian patients: effectiveness trial with 1-year follow-up

Self-management of chronic illnesses has been widely recognised as an important goal on quality of life, health service utilisation and cost grounds. This study describes the first published account on the application of this approach to people suffering from chronic pain conditions in a Southeast Asian country, Malaysia. A heterogeneous sample of chronic pain patients in Malaysia attended a 2-week cognitive–behavioural pain management programme (PMP) aimed at improving daily functional activities and general psychological well-being. Complete datasets from 70 patients out of 102 patients who attended 11 programmes conducted from 2002 to 2007, as well as the 1-month and 1-year follow-up sessions at the hospital clinic, are reported. The pre- to post-treatment results on self-report measures indicate that significant gains were achieved on the dimensions of pain, disability and psychological well-being. These gains were maintained at both 1-month and 1-year follow-ups. The results mirror those reported from similar interventions in Europe and North America and indicate the concept of self-management of a chronic illness is acceptable and meaningful to Asian patients. Importantly, the achieved outcomes were independent of gender and ethnic group status

Congenital hepatic fibrosis leading to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Congenital hepatic fibrosis is an uncommon cause of portal hypertension. Despite the presence of portal hypertension, hepatocellular and renal function are usually well preserved. Congenital hepatic fibrosis is included in the group of congenital diseases of fibropolycystic disorders. These include a broad spectrum of clinical diseases which are usually accompanied by hepatic involvement.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of a 27-year-old Iranian woman with congenital hepatic fibrosis leading to cirrhosis and subsequently hepatocellular carcinoma.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Advanced cirrhosis was diagnosed and our patient was scheduled for liver transplantation. During preparation for transplant, a hepatic mass was discovered which was found to be hepatocellular carcinoma. Radiofrequency ablation was performed and our patient was referred for transplantation.</p

A case study of possible future summer convective precipitation over the UK and Europe from a regional climate projection

Climate change caused by green house gas emissions is now following the trend of rapid warming consistent with a RCP8.5 forcing. Climate models are still unable to represent the mesoscale convective processes that occur at resolutions ∼O(3 km) and are not capable of resolving precipitation patterns in time and space with sufficient accuracy to represent convection. In this article, the UK Met Office precipitation observations are compared with the simulations for the period 1990–1995 followed by a simulation of a near‐future period 2031–2036 for a regional nested weather model. The convection‐permitting model, resolution ∼O(3 km), provides a good correspondence to the observational precipitation data and demonstrates the importance of explicit convection for future summer precipitation estimates. The UK summer precipitation is reduced slightly (∼10%) for 2031–2036 and there is no evidence of an increase in the peak maximum hourly precipitation magnitude. A similar pattern is observed over the whole European inner model domain. The results using the Kain–Fritsch convective parameterization scheme at a resolution ∼O(12 km) in the outer domain increase summer precipitation by ∼10% for the UK. The average precipitation rate per event increases, dry periods extend and wet periods shorten. As part of the change, 10‐m winds of <3 m s⁻¹ become more common – a scenario that would impact on power generation from wind turbines through calmer conditions and cause more frequent pollution episodes

African Lightning and its Relation to Rainfall and Climate Change in a Convection‐Permitting Model

Global climate models struggle to simulate both the convection and cloud ice fundamental to lightning formation. We use the first convection‐permitting, future climate simulations for the lightning hot spot of Africa, at the same time utilizing an ice‐based lightning parametrization. Both the model and observations show that lightning over Africa's drier areas, as well as the moist Congo, have more lightning per rainfall than other regions. Contrary to results in the literature, the future projection shows little increase in total lightning (~107 flashes (or 2%) per degree warming). This is a consequence of increased stability reducing the number of lightning days, largely offsetting the increased graupel and updraft velocity driving an increase in lightning per lightning day. The next step is to establish if these results are robust across other models and, if combined with parametrized‐convection models, whether ensemble‐based information on the possible responses of lightning to climate change can be investigated. Plain Language Summary Lightning depends on ascending air in thunderstorms and the collision of cloud ice particles, which charge the thundercloud. Many climate models have too coarse a resolution to reliably capture these processes. We focus on Africa, which has some of the most frequent lightning in the world. We use a model that is much higher resolution than usual, and this allows us to explicitly simulate the deep convection associated with thunderstorms as well as provide more detailed representation of the distribution of cloud ice particles. Our results show that in drier regions, as well as the much wetter Congo, there is relatively more lightning per kilogram of surface rainfall than there is in other parts of the continent. Lightning does increase across the continent under climate change, but by a relatively small amount. This is despite the number of days with lightning decreasing as the lower atmosphere becomes more stable. On days with lightning, there are more lightning flashes because there is an increase in cloud ice and intensity of convection. This study gives much more detailed information about African lightning than previous work. However, it is a single simulation. Future research should look at these results across other climate models

Chronic pain in primary care. German figures from 1991 and 2006

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Until now only limited research has been done on the prevalence of chronic pain in primary care. The aim of this investigation was to study the health care utilisation of patients suffering from pain. How many patients visit an outpatient clinic because of the symptom of pain? These data were compared with data from a similar study in 1991, to investigate whether improvements had been achieved.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 1201 consecutive patients visiting outpatient clinics were surveyed in six practices in the western part of Germany on randomly selected days by means of questionnaires. Topics were the point prevalence of pain and the period prevalence of chronic pain, its characteristics and its impact on daily life, as well as data on previous therapies for pain. A retrospective comparison was made with the data from a similar study with same design surveying 900 patients that took place in five practices during 1991.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In 2006, pain was the main reason for consulting a doctor in 42.5% of all patients (1991: 50.3%). Of all respondents, 62% suffered from pain on the particular day of the consultation, and 40% reported that they had been suffering from pain for more than six months (1991: 36.4%). As many as 88.3% of patients with chronic pain reported a negative impact on their daily life due to this pain (1991: 68%), and 88.1% reported impairment of their working life because of chronic pain (1991: 59.1%).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Pain, and chronic pain in particular, is a central problem in primary care. Over the last 15 years, the number of patients suffering from chronic pain has not decreased. In nearly half of all cases, pain is still the reason for health care utilisation in outpatient clinics. Pain represents a major primary health care problem with enormous impact on public health. Improvements can only be achieved by improving the quality of health care at the primary care level.</p

The convective storm initiation project

Copyright @ 2007 AMSThe Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP) is an international project to understand precisely where, when, and how convective clouds form and develop into showers in the mainly maritime environment of southern England. A major aim of CSIP is to compare the results of the very high resolution Met Office weather forecasting model with detailed observations of the early stages of convective clouds and to use the newly gained understanding to improve the predictions of the model. A large array of ground-based instruments plus two instrumented aircraft, from the U.K. National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the German Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK), Karlsruhe, were deployed in southern England, over an area centered on the meteorological radars at Chilbolton, during the summers of 2004 and 2005. In addition to a variety of ground-based remote-sensing instruments, numerous rawin-sondes were released at one- to two-hourly intervals from six closely spaced sites. The Met Office weather radar network and Meteosat satellite imagery were used to provide context for the observations made by the instruments deployed during CSIP. This article presents an overview of the CSIP field campaign and examples from CSIP of the types of convective initiation phenomena that are typical in the United Kingdom. It shows the way in which certain kinds of observational data are able to reveal these phenomena and gives an explanation of how the analyses of data from the field campaign will be used in the development of an improved very high resolution NWP model for operational use.This work is funded by the National Environment Research Council following an initial award from the HEFCE Joint Infrastructure Fund

Improved Measurements of Partial Rate Asymmetry in B -> h h Decays

We report improved measurements of the partial rate asymmetry (Acp) in B -> h h decays with 140fb^-1 of data collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB e+e- collider. Here h stands for a charged or neutral pion or kaon and in total five decay modes are included: K-+ pi+-, K0s pi-+, K-+ pi0, pi-+ pi0 and K0s pi0. The flavor of the last decay mode is determined from the accompanying B meson. Using a data sample 4.7 times larger than that of our previous measurement, we find Acp(K-+ pi+-) -0.088+-0.035+-0.013, 2.4 sigma from zero. Results for other decay modes are also presented.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Search for CP violation in the decay B0->D*+-D-+

We report a search for CP-violating asymmetry in B0 -> D*+- D-+ decays. The analysis employs two methods of B0 reconstruction: full and partial. In the full reconstruction method all daughter particles of the B0 are required to be detected; the partial reconstruction technique requires a fully reconstructed D- and only a slow pion from the D*+ -> D0 pi_slow+ decay. From a fit to the distribution of the time interval corresponding to the distance between two B meson decay points we calculate the CP-violating parameters and find the significance of nonzero CP asymmetry to be 2.7 standard deviations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure