RAPID: Impacts of Post-Hurricane Land-Atmosphere Interactions on Convective and Precipitation Processes in the Caribbean Region

飓风玛丽亚造成的破坏性影响之一是极端大风和暴雨给波多黎各带来了巨大的景观变化。随着该岛的恢复，该项目将为一个研究小组提供资金，研究陆地表面变化如何影响加勒比地区风暴的发展和加强。该奖项将为翻新和更换一些现有的研究基础设施以及测量陆地表面能量平衡的新仪器提供资金。观测结果将与数值模式模拟结果进行比较，以回答有关风暴开始和增强的问题。这项研究的长期影响将是提高极端降水的预测能力，这对公共安全和水资源管理具有重要意义。该研究小组还将与波多黎各的利益攸关方合作，提供科学可靠的信息，以提高他们对自然灾害的抵御能力。该研究小组计划提高对陆地-大气相互作用在加勒比海风暴发展和增强中所起作用的理解。研究人员认为，由于飓风玛丽亚造成的陆地表面变化可以提供一个独特的对比场景，以加速对风暴开始和增强的理解。该小组计划更新现有的观测网络，包括表面能量通量传感器，并修复一些被玛丽亚损坏的现有设备。将建立一个综合能量平衡站点，记录显通量、潜通量和二氧化碳通量。将进行两次密集的观测，包括发射无线电探空仪和气溶胶物种取样器。将使用RAMS模型进行不同的陆地表面配置，并根据观测结果进行测试。四个研究问题是该项目的核心：1)改变后的景观如何影响当地的地表能量和水预算？2)降雨季节局地能量和水收支的变化对对流的影响是怎样的？3)在景观变化的背景下，当地陆地-大气过程如何与撒哈拉沙尘平流等影响云形成和降雨的大尺度事件相互作用？4)这些地球物理变化将如何影响正在恢复的当地社区？特别是，他们对洪水有多脆弱？农业部门面临的挑战是什么？

One of Hurricane Maria's devastating impacts was a significant landscape change to Puerto Rico from the extreme winds and flooding rains. As the island recovers, this project will provide funding for a research team to study how land surface changes may impact storm development and intensification in the Caribbean. The award will provide funding for the refurbishment and replacement of some existing research infrastructure, and new instruments to measure the energy balance of the land surface. Observations will be compared with numerical model simulations to answer questions about storm initiation and invigoration. The long-term impact of this study will be an improved capacity to predict extreme precipitation, which has implications for public safety and water resource management. The research team will also work with stakeholders in Puerto Rico to provide scientifically sound information to increase their resilience to natural disasters.The research team plans to improve understanding of the role played by modified land-atmosphere interactions in storm development and intensification in the Caribbean. The researchers believe that the land surface changes due to Hurricane Maria could provide a unique contrasting scenario to accelerate understanding of storm initiation and invigoration. The team plans to update an existing observational network to include surface energy flux sensors and to repair some of the existing equipment that was damaged by Maria. A comprehensive energy balance site will be established to record sensible, latent and carbon dioxide fluxes. Two intensive observing periods will be conducted with radiosonde launches and an aerosol speciation sampler. Varied land surface configurations will be conducted using the RAMS model and tested against the observations. Four research questions are at the core of the project: 1) How does the modified landscape impact the local surface energy and water budgets? 2) How do the changes in local energy and water budgets impact convection during the rainfall seasons? 3) In the context of a changed landscape, how do the local land-atmosphere processes interact with large scale events like Saharan dust advection that influence cloud formation and rainfall? 4) How will these geophysical changes impact the recovering local community? Particularly, how vulnerable are they to flooding and what are the challenges to the agricultural sector?