Spatiotemporal Variations of Precipitation in China Using Surface Gauge Observations from 1961 to 2016

Long-term precipitation trend is a good indicator of climate and hydrological change. The data from 635 ground stations are used to quantify the temporal trends of precipitation with different intensity in China from 1961 to 2016. These sites are roughly uniformly distributed in the east or west regions of China, while fewer sites exist in the western region. The result shows that precipitation with a rate of 70%. With a 95% confidence level, there is no significant temporal change of annually averaged precipitation in the whole of China. Seasonally, there are no significant temporal changes except for a robust decreasing trend in autumn. Spatially, significant differences in the temporal trends of precipitation are found among various regions. The increasing trend is the largest in Northwest China, and the decreasing trend is the largest in North China. The annually averaged number of precipitation days shows a decreasing trend in all regions except for Northwest China. Regarding precipitation type, the number of light precipitation days shows a robust decreasing trend for almost all regions, while other types show no significant change. Considering the high frequency, the temporal trends of light precipitation could highly explain the temporal variation of the total precipitation amount in China

Spatiotemporal Variations of Precipitation in China Using Surface Gauge Observations from 1961 to 2016

Long-term precipitation trend is a good indicator of climate and hydrological change. The data from 635 ground stations are used to quantify the temporal trends of precipitation with different intensity in China from 1961 to 2016. These sites are roughly uniformly distributed in the east or west regions of China, while fewer sites exist in the western region. The result shows that precipitation with a rate of 70%. With a 95% confidence level, there is no significant temporal change of annually averaged precipitation in the whole of China. Seasonally, there are no significant temporal changes except for a robust decreasing trend in autumn. Spatially, significant differences in the temporal trends of precipitation are found among various regions. The increasing trend is the largest in Northwest China, and the decreasing trend is the largest in North China. The annually averaged number of precipitation days shows a decreasing trend in all regions except for Northwest China. Regarding precipitation type, the number of light precipitation days shows a robust decreasing trend for almost all regions, while other types show no significant change. Considering the high frequency, the temporal trends of light precipitation could highly explain the temporal variation of the total precipitation amount in China

Application and Evaluation of an Explicit Prognostic Cloud Cover Scheme in GRAPES Global Forecast System

An explicit prognostic cloud‐cover scheme (PROGCS) is implemented into the Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System (GRAPES) for global middle‐range numerical weather predication system (GRAPES_GFS) to improve the model performance in simulating cloud cover and radiation. Unlike the previous diagnostic cloud‐cover scheme (DIAGCS), PROGCS considers the formation and dissipation of cloud cover by physically connecting it to the cumulus convection and large‐scale stratiform condensation processes. Our simulation results show that clouds in mid‐high latitudes arise mainly from large‐scale stratiform condensation processes, while cumulus convection and large‐scale condensation processes jointly determine cloud cover in low latitudes. Compared with DIAGCS, PROGCS captures more consistent vertical distributions of cloud cover with the observations from Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) program at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site and simulates more realistic diurnal cycle of marine stratocumulus with the ERA‐Interim reanalysis data. The low, high, and total cloud covers that are determined via PROGCS appear to be more realistic than those simulated via DIAGCS when both are compared with satellite retrievals though the former maintains slight negative biases. In addition, the simulations of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) from PROGCS runs have been considerably improved as well, resulting in less biases in radiative heating rates at heights below 850 hPa and above 400 hPa of GRAPES_GFS. Our results indicate that a prognostic method of cloud‐cover calculation has significant advantage over the conventional diagnostic one, and it should be adopted in both weather and climate simulation and forecast

Application and Evaluation of an Explicit Prognostic Cloud Cover Scheme in GRAPES Global Forecast System

An explicit prognostic cloud‐cover scheme (PROGCS) is implemented into the Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System (GRAPES) for global middle‐range numerical weather predication system (GRAPES_GFS) to improve the model performance in simulating cloud cover and radiation. Unlike the previous diagnostic cloud‐cover scheme (DIAGCS), PROGCS considers the formation and dissipation of cloud cover by physically connecting it to the cumulus convection and large‐scale stratiform condensation processes. Our simulation results show that clouds in mid‐high latitudes arise mainly from large‐scale stratiform condensation processes, while cumulus convection and large‐scale condensation processes jointly determine cloud cover in low latitudes. Compared with DIAGCS, PROGCS captures more consistent vertical distributions of cloud cover with the observations from Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) program at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site and simulates more realistic diurnal cycle of marine stratocumulus with the ERA‐Interim reanalysis data. The low, high, and total cloud covers that are determined via PROGCS appear to be more realistic than those simulated via DIAGCS when both are compared with satellite retrievals though the former maintains slight negative biases. In addition, the simulations of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) from PROGCS runs have been considerably improved as well, resulting in less biases in radiative heating rates at heights below 850 hPa and above 400 hPa of GRAPES_GFS. Our results indicate that a prognostic method of cloud‐cover calculation has significant advantage over the conventional diagnostic one, and it should be adopted in both weather and climate simulation and forecast

External Tropospheric Corrections by Using Kriging Interpolation for Improving PPP-RTK Positioning Solutions

With the availability of satellite carrier-phase delay corrections provided by a reference network or the International GNSS Service (IGS), the integer ambiguity resolution for a single receiver can be successfully achieved, which is the so-called PPP-RTK concept. Although PPP-RTK can significantly shorten the convergence time, it is still worthwhile to further investigate fast and high-precision GNSS parameter estimation to improve efficiency and productivity. In order to fully exploit the potential of GNSS for positioning applications, we herein introduce external troposphere corrections as constrained pseudo observables to the undifferenced and uncombined PPP-RTK model. Since the uncertainties of the corrections are considered in the data processing, the PPP-RTK model with the weighted tropospheric corrections is referred to as the tropospheric-weighted model. Kriging interpolation is applied to generate the tropospheric corrections, as well as the corresponding variances. The quality of the tropospheric-weighted model is assessed by the positioning Root Mean Square (RMS) errors and the convergence time to reach a 10 cm accuracy. The 90% 3D convergence time of the kinematic positioning mode of the tropospheric-weighted model is 43.5 min with the ambiguity-float solution and 21.5 min with the ambiguity-fixed solution, which are shortened by 4.5 min and 5.5 min as compared to those of the standard PPP-RTK model, respectively. As for the static positioning mode, the 90% 3D convergence time of the tropospheric-weighted model for the ambiguity-float and -fixed solutions is 25.5 min and 15 min, while the 3D convergence time is 31.5 min and 18.5 min for the standard PPP-RTK model, respectively. The results also show that the tropospheric-weighted model can still work well in a 5 cm convergence threshold

A Supercooled Water Cloud Detection Algorithm Using Himawari-8 Satellite Measurements

International audienceThe detection of supercooled water clouds (SWCs) is essential for artificial rain enhancement, the prevention of aircraft ice accretion, and better understanding of radiative energy balance. However, it is challenging to identify SWCs using only passive satellite measurements. We adopt measurements from the Advanced Himawari Imager, which is onboard the new-generation, high temporal, spatial, and spectral resolution geostationary Himawari-8 satellite, to develop a time-continuous Himawari-8 SWC (HSWC) algorithm. The HSWC algorithm includes a group of tests using comprehensive cloud properties (e.g., cloud phase [CPH], cloud top temperature, cloud optical thickness, and cloud effective radius [CER]). Unlike previous SWC detection algorithms, which are based on cloud top temperature and cloud optical thickness properties, we introduce CER and CPH information into the HSWC algorithm because the distribution of SWCs is sensitive to CER values, and SWCs may appear in mixed-phase clouds identified by satellites. Our analyses indicate that the additions of the CER and CPH tests could improve the performance of SWC detection by 15.07% and 4.75%, respectively. The full disk SWC detection results identified by the HSWC algorithm in January, May, August, and October of 2017 are validated using lidar measurements. The hit rate and false alarm rate are 93.52% and 25.27%, respectively. Our study provides potential SWC regions for the implementation of artificial rain enhancement

A TCAD Study on High-Voltage Superjunction LDMOS with Variable-K Dielectric Trench

In this paper, a novel high voltage superjunction lateral double diffused MOSFETs (SJ-LDMOS) using a variable high permittivity (VHK) dielectric trench is presented. A relatively high HK dielectric is in the upper trench, which is connected with the drain electrode to suppress the high electric field (E-field) peak under the drain by the dielectric reduced surface field (RESURF) effect. In addition, a relatively low HK dielectric is at the bottom of the trench. On the one hand, the substrate is effectively depleted by a suitable HK dielectric layer, and the vertical depletion region of the substrate is greatly expanded. On the other hand, the overall vertical bulk E-field distribution is modulated by the E-field peaks generated at the position of varying K dielectric. A more uniform bulk E-field distribution is obtained for VHK SJ-LDMOS, leading to a high breakdown voltage (BV). Compared to the conventional SJ-LDMOS, the blocking voltage per micron of the drift region of VHK SJ-LDMOS has increased by 41.2%. Besides, compared with the SJ-LDMOS with a uniform-K, the BV of VHK SJ-LDMOS is improved by about 9.5%. The condition of the optimal range of the variable high permittivity is also presented. Meanwhile, the proposed VHK SJ-LDMOS has good conduction characteristics and heat dissipatio

Wear Characteristics of Dense Fine Particles Solid-Liquid Two-Phase Fluid Centrifugal Pump with Open Impellers

The demand for a centrifugal pump with open impellers for conveying dense fine particles in solid-liquid two-phase flow has increased significantly in actual engineering. The wear of dense fine particles on the centrifugal pump is also exceedingly prominent, which affects the engineering efficiency and economic benefits. The two-phase flow in the open centrifugal pump is three-dimensional and unsteady; the movement of high-volume concentration particles in the centrifugal pump and its mutual influence on the two-phase flow, which results in the calculation of wear, are very intricate. To study the wear characteristics of the centrifugal pump with open impeller with high-volume concentration particles more accurately, numerical simulation and experimental comparison are carried out for the impeller wear of dense fine particles transported by the centrifugal pump with open impellers. Considering the relationship between particles and walls, we used the Fluent 18.0 built-in rebound function and wear model. The RNG k-ε model and the DDPM model were adopted in the numerical simulation, and the numerical solution for centrifugal pump wear was performed under flow rate (9.6 m3·h−1, 12.8 m3·h−1, 16 m3·h−1, and 19.2 m3·h−1), different particle sizes (0.048 mm, 0.106 mm, 0.15 mm, 0.27 mm, and 0.425 mm), and different particle volume concentrations (10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, and 30%), respectively. By comparing the serious wear positions of the impeller, the experimental results correspond well with the numerical simulation, which can be used to predict and study the wear characteristics of the impeller. The results show that the most serious area of blade wear is the middle part of the pressure surface, followed by the middle part of the upper part of the blade. The wear of the impeller is greatly affected by relevant parameters, such as pump flow rate, particle diameter, and particle volume concentration. These results can provide some basis for the wear-resistant design of dense fine particle impeller