The Spatiotemporal Relationship between Thunderstorm Initiation and Soil Moisture

Summary
Funded by a NASA award led by Dr. Steven Quiring at Ohio State University, this project aims to determine if patterns exist between thunderstorm initiation and soil moisture.

There is a lack of agreement between models and observations regarding the sign and strength of soil moisture-precipitation feedbacks. This project will use satellite, WSR-88D radar and in situ observations to provide a process-based understanding of how soil moisture influences convective precipitation. The results of this project will be useful for evaluating whether models are able to accurately represent land-atmosphere interactions and it has the potential to lead to improvements in the accuracy of monthly-to-seasonal climate forecasts and climate change projections.

Participants
Adam Houston