Water Resource Management Commons^™

Proportions Of Convective And Stratiform Precipitation Revealed In Water Isotope Ratios, Pradeep K. Aggarwal, Ulrike Romatschke, Luis Araguas-Araguas, Dagnachew Belachew, Fred J. Longstaffe, Peter Berg, Courtney Schumacher, Aaron Funk

Earth Sciences Publications

Tropical and midlatitude precipitation is fundamentally of two types, spatially-limited and high-intensity convective or widespread and lower-intensity stratiform, owing to differences in vertical air motions and microphysical processes governing rain formation. These processes are difficult to observe or model and precipitation partitioning into rain types is critical for understanding how the water cycle responds to climate changes. Here, we combine two independent data sets – convective and stratiform precipitation fractions, derived from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite or synoptic cloud observations, and stable isotope and tritium compositions of surface precipitation, derived from a global network – to show that …