| NSF Org: |
AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | November 5, 2020 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | November 5, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 2032358 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Nicholas Anderson
nanderso@nsf.gov (703)292-4715 AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | January 1, 2021 |
| End Date: | December 31, 2024 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $230,524.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $230,524.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
506 S WRIGHT ST URBANA IL US 61801-3620 (217)333-2187 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
506 S. Wright Street Urbana IL US 61801-3620 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Physical & Dynamic Meteorology |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
Soil moisture is important for the climate system because it controls evaporation, transpiration, and energy movement from the land to the atmosphere. Through these mechanisms, soil moisture can influence the timing and intensity of precipitation at daily to seasonal timescales. However, there is a lack of scientific consensus on the sign, strength, and overall importance of soil moisture-precipitation feedbacks. This project will improve our understanding of the land and atmosphere processes that are important to convection initiation and precipitation during the warm season (May to September) in the central United States. The knowledge gained from this project will be used to improve the accuracy of simulations in operational weather and climate models. The project will provide undergraduate students, a graduate student, and postdoctoral researchers with training in research, science communication, and public outreach.
This project will assess the nature and strength of soil moisture feedbacks on convective precipitation in the central United States using a coupled observation-modeling framework to examine the physical processes linking the soil and boundary layer atmosphere. The objectives of the project are to: (1) evaluate whether convection occurs preferentially over wet or dry soils in the central United States, (2) quantify the influence of soil moisture on convection and precipitation using process-based metrics and high quality land and atmosphere observations, and (3) evaluate the response of convection and precipitation to changes in soil moisture conditions using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. This project will utilize soil moisture observations from the National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network and hundreds of thousands of convection events identified by the ThOR algorithm. This combination of in situ observations and the immense sample size of convective events provides an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate soil moisture ? precipitation feedbacks. The results of this study will lead to improvements in the parameterization schemes that are used in weather and climate models. This study focuses on a region that has the densest land-surface and boundary layer observations, but the process-based understanding of land-atmosphere interactions and their role in modulating the climate is readily transferable to other regions around the world.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The overall goal of this project was to improve our understanding and modeling of how the land surface, through soil moisture, affects the occurrence and intensity of warm season (May – September) convection initiation in the central United States. The project resulted in a significant gain in observation and scientific understanding of soil moisture impact on precipitation in the Great Plains. We delineated areas of the Great Plains where precipitation is enhanced and more intense over wetter soils, including in central Texas, and areas where precipitation is enhanced and more intense over drier soils, including the lower Mississippi Valley.
We matched these observation-based results with modeling from the Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) model over the Great Plains region. The model was able to reproduce the sign and strength of the soil moisture impact on precipitation in the region, although we found a much stronger response in Texas relative to the lower Mississippi Valley region. Overall, the results of this research have greatly improved our understanding and modeling of convective precipitation in the Great Plains region, and will help improve forecasting of heavy rainfall and resultant flooding, especially for the role of soil moisture and its feedbacks. The project team has also produced multiple articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and have disseminated the findings of this project through multiple presentations at national conferences.
This project has supported three graduate student researchers, two at University of Illinois and one at Ohio State University. The student researchers gained important skills in data management, programming, model development, and statistical analysis over the course of the project, and the analysis formed the basis for their thesis and dissertation projects. Two graduate student researchers subsequently graduated and have moved into the public sector climate services and private sector weather forecasting, respectively, and the third student is expected to graduate with their PhD in late 2025.
Last Modified: 03/28/2025
Modified by: Trent W Ford
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