SCI-PS217.03 - RELAMPAGO and SAME-PACE: Extreme storms that impact society in Southeastern South America

STEPHEN NESBITT; PAOLA SALIO

MOntreal

Conferencia; World Weather Research Program Open Science Conference; 2014

Organizacion Meteorologica Mundial

RELAMPAGO (Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, And Meso-scale/micro-scale Processes withAdaptive Ground Observations) and ARM-DOE SAME-PACE (South American Multiscale ExtremePrecipitation-Aerosol-Cloud Experiment) is proposed to be an international multi-agency field program tostudy the multi-scale aspects of convective storms that have extreme characteristics and impacts,produce an extreme precipitation climate, and have extreme impacts on the earth system. Theconvection in the lee of the Andes in Central Argentina and downstream into Uruguay, Paraguay andsouthern Brazil produces severe societal and economic impacts on this densely populated and keyagricultural region. Reports of hail, strong straight line and tornadic winds, flooding, and dangerouslightning are common, but not as common as would be expected based on satellite proxies of convectionand precipitation. In this data sparse, but modernizing region, we do not know much about aspects ofthese systems including what governs their structure, initiation and life cycle, extreme behavior,hydrometeorological impacts, connections with the earth system, as well as similarities and differenceswith severe weather-producing systems observed in the US and elsewhere. Models exert poorrepresentation and predictability of these systems on nowcasting, synoptic-scale weather to climatetimescales. The impacts of these storms on the global electric circuit, aerosol, IN, and CCN budgets, thewater cycle, regional and global atmospheric composition and chemistry, and climate variability can bebetter constrained by detailed observations of the processes occurring in these extreme storms.