The water vapour flux above Switzerland and its role in the August 2005 extreme precipitation and flooding

Koffi, Ernest N'Dri; Graham, Charles Edward; Mätzler, Christian (2013). The water vapour flux above Switzerland and its role in the August 2005 extreme precipitation and flooding. Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 22(3), pp. 329-342. Borntraeger 10.1127/0941-2948/2013/0392

Preview

Text water vapour.pdf - Published Version Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (1MB) | Preview

The water budget approach is applied to an atmospheric box above Switzerland (hereafter referred to as the “Swiss box”) to quantify the atmospheric water vapour flux using ECMWF ERA-Interim reanalyses. The results confirm that the water vapour flux through the Swiss box is highly temporally variable, ranging from 1 to 5 · 107 kg/s during settled anticyclonic weather, but increasing in size by a factor of ten or more during high speed currents of water vapour. Overall, Switzerland and the Swiss box “import” more water vapour than it “exports”, but the amount gained remains only a small fraction (1% to 5%) of the total available water vapour passing by. High inward water vapour fluxes are not necessarily linked to high precipitation episodes. The water vapour flux during the August 2005 floods, which caused severe damage in central Switzerland, is examined and an assessment is made of the computed water vapour fluxes compared to high spatio-temporal rain gauge and radar observations. About 25% of the incoming water vapour flux was stored in Switzerland. The computed water vapour fluxes from ECMWF data compare well with the mean rain gauge observations and the combined rain-gauge radar precipitation products.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

327 since deposited on 22 Sep 2014
35 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item