Session 11A Atmospheric Rivers: Processes, Impacts, and Communicating Uncertainty I

Wednesday, 15 January 2025: 1:45 PM-3:00 PM
244 (New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
Host: 38th Conference on Climate Variability and Change
Submitters:
Bin Guan; Christine A. Shields, USRA, NASA GMAO, Greenbelt, MD and Alexandre Ramos, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg
Cochairs:
Bin Guan; Christine A. Shields, USRA, NASA GMAO, Greenbelt, MD and Alexandre M. Ramos, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are long, narrow filamentary structures that involve intensive water vapor transport in the lower troposphere and are essential to the global hydrological cycle. They are often associated with extreme winter storms and heavy precipitation along the western coasts of mid-latitude continents and have the ability to produce major flooding events and/or relieve droughts. Understanding how ARs may vary on subseasonal-to-interdecadal and local-to-global scales and change in a warmer climate is critical to advancing understanding and prediction of regional precipitation and water availability.

Quantifying uncertainty in AR science, which may originate from detection methodology, reanalysis products, initial condition, and model error or spread, plays a crucial role in assessing confidence in process-level and impact-orientated AR analysis and predictions. Communicating risk and uncertainty to stakeholders from AR impacts is also necessary for adaptation and establishing resilience to high impact AR events that can result in flooding, landslides, and melting of sea ice, snow, and glaciers. Continuing this session from past years, and in the context of these AR-related challenges, this session will focus on AR science, impacts, and uncertainty quantification across a range of scientific foci and spatiotemporal scales. We encourage submissions from topics such as AR development, driving mechanisms, dynamical and thermodynamical responses, case studies including but not limited to the 2022-2024 wet seasons on the United States west coast, as well as climate change, linkage with multi-scale climate variability and predictability, compound events, and impacts on different components of the Earth system. Uncertainty quantification is encouraged as a part of each topic.

Papers:
1:45 PM
11A.1
Diagnosis of the role of the tropics in driving serial clustering of atmospheric rivers over the U.S. West Coast during January 2023
Benjamin J. Moore, NOAA, Boulder, CO; and J. Dias, S. N. Tulich, M. Gehne, A. J. Hoell, J. R. Albers, C. Baggett, and E. LaJoie

2:00 PM
11A.2
Climate Change Effects on the December 2022 - January 2023 High Impact Series of Atmospheric Rivers Along the U.S. West Coast
Hunter Martinez-Buehrer, Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL; and A. C. Michaelis, J. Cordeira, A. Gershunov, V. A. Gensini, PhD, CCM, A. Haberlie, W. S. Ashley, and F. M. Ralph

2:15 PM
11A.3
Characteristics, Impacts, and Historical Perspectives of Atmospheric Rivers along the U.S. East Coast during Winter 2023–2024
Nicholas D. Metz, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY; and J. Cordeira, H. B. Kostka, X. Zou, E. A. Slinskey, and F. M. Ralph

2:30 PM
11A.4
Sensitivity of Numerical Atmospheric River Precipitation Forecasts to Choice of Microphysics Parameterization
Sawyer Dylan Smith, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC; and G. M. Lackmann and G. K. Easthom

2:45 PM
11A.5
An Algorithm to Develop a Satellite-Based Atmospheric River Database
Shineng Hu, Duke University, Durham, NC; and T. Liu

- Indicates paper has been withdrawn from meeting
- Indicates an Award Winner