School of Earth and Environment

UK-COPS

People: Alan Blyth

Start Date: 1 May 2007
End Date: 30 April 2008

Funded by: NCAS

Value to Leeds: £119.005

NCAS web pages

Abstract

Flooding caused by heavy convective rain is a serious problem in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The flash-flood event that occurred at Boscastle in August 2004, for example, highlights the severe damage that can be caused by heavy convective precipitation. The Hadley Centre regional model, HadRM2, shows that one of the impacts of climate change is likely to be significant reductions in the return periods of extreme precipitation. Perhaps we are already experiencing this.

The Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study (COPS) was a German-led project designed to improve the quality of forecasts of orographic convective precipitation. COPS was an international field campaign that took place over the Black Forest mountains, Germany during the summer months of 2007. UK scientists participated in the project and are playing a crucial role in the analysis of data by means of a NERC consortium, UK-COPS, led by scientists in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the University of Leeds. The consortium involves scientists at the Universities of Manchester, Salford, and Reading, the Met Office as well as international partners in the US, Germany, Austria, France and Italy. UK-COPS is related to the Convective Storm Initiation Project (CSIP), a project also led by Leeds scientists to improve forecasts of the timing and location of severe storms in England.

The specific aim of UK-COPS is to understand the formation and development of convection over complex, hilly terrain, thereby reducing uncertainty in predictability of orographic convection

  1. The thermally driven flows in complex terrain depend critically on the surface exchanges of heat and water.
  2. The composition and size distribution of the aerosol particles have a crucial influence on the microphysics and dynamics of the convective clouds and particularly the amount of precipitation.
  3. The thermals and other features in the boundary layer, transport heat, moisture and aerosols to the convective clouds.
  4. The development of precipitation depends critically on the detailed microphysics and dynamics of the convective clouds.
  5. Finally, reducing uncertainty in predictability of the location and timing of convective storms in hilly terrain with the UM, depends on the knowledge gained from the above four parts.