Atmospheric rivers: a mini-review

Frontiers in Digital Humanities

Lavers, David A.²  Gimeno, Luis²  Vá²  zquez, Marta³  Nieto, Raquel³ 

[1] The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA, IHR-Hydroscience and Engineering, IHR-Hydroscience and Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA, Iowa City, IA, United States;UNIVERSIDAD DE VIGO, Física Aplicada, FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS DE OURENSE., OURENSE, 32004, Spain

关键词: Atmospheric rivers;    transport of moisture;    atmospheric branch of the hydrological cycle;    intense precipitation;    extratropical cyclones.;   

DOI  :  10.3389/feart.2014.00002

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow regions responsible for the majority of the poleward water vapour transport across the midlatitudes. They are characterized by high water vapour content and strong low level winds, and form a part of the broader warm conveyor belt of extratropical cyclones. Although the meridional water vapour transport within ARs is critical for water resources, ARs can also cause disastrous floods especially when encountering mountainous terrain. They were labelled as atmospheric rivers in the 1990s, and have since become a well-studied feature of the midlatitude climate. We briefly review the conceptual model, the methods used to identify them, their main climatological characteristics, their impacts, the predictive ability of numerical weather prediction models, their relationship with large-scale ocean-atmosphere dynamics, possible changes under future climates, and some future challenges.

【 授权许可】

CC BY