Title
High-Elevation Monsoon Precipitation Processes in the Central Andes of Peru
Date Issued
27 December 2020
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Publisher(s)
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Abstract
Measurements at the high-elevation Lamar Observatory in the Mantaro Valley (MV) in the Central Andes of Peru demonstrate a diurnal cycle of precipitation characterized by convective rainfall during the afternoon and nighttime stratiform rainfall with embedded convection. Wet season data (2016–2018) reveal long-duration (6–12 hr) shallow precipitating systems (LDPS) that produced about 17% of monsoon rainfall in 2016 and 2018 associated with El Niño and La Niña, respectively. The LPDS fraction of monsoon rainfall doubles to 35% with weekly recurrence in 2017 under El Niño Costero (coastal) conditions. LDPS occur under favorable moisture conditions dictated by the South America (SA) Low-Level Jet (SALLJ) and Cold Air Intrusions (CAIs). Backward trajectory analysis shows that precipitable water sustains >80% of seasonal precipitation and ties the LPDS to particular moisture source regions in the eastern Andes foothills 1–2 days in advance, enhanced by increased moisture supply in the midtroposphere. Higher frequency of CAIs and enhanced midlevel moisture convergence along CAI fronts explain the increased LDPS frequency during the 2017 El Niño Costero. These findings highlight the functional role of the Andes morphology in organizing moisture supply to high-elevation precipitation systems on the orographic envelope. Analysis of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission satellite-based radar observations points to challenges to precipitation detection and estimation in this region as the GPM clutter-free height (~1–2 km AGL) exceeds the depth of shallow precipitation systems in the MV.
Volume
125
Issue
24
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Geoquímica, Geofísica Meteorología y ciencias atmosféricas Investigación climática
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85098288356
Source
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
ISSN of the container
2169897X
Sponsor(s)
The authors gratefully acknowledge the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) for the provision of the HYSPLIT transport and dispersion model and READY website (http://www.ready.noaa.gov) used in this publication. We thank Dr. Danny Scipion for help processing the wind radar data and the team that maintains the instruments at the Huancayo observatory and LAMAR laboratory from the Instituto Geofísico del Perú (IGP). The authors acknowledge the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) (2017): ERA5: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate, Copernicus Climate Change Service Climate Data Store (CDS), 2019. (http://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/home). The first author acknowledges support from Fondecyt Peru for his doctoral fellowship (Contract No. 2017-14). Innovate Peru supported the second author (Contract No. 400-PNICP-PIBA-2014). This work was supported in part by NASA Grant 80NSSC19K0685 with the corresponding author.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus