Intensification of Convective Rain Cells at Warmer Temperatures Observed from High-Resolution Weather Radar Data

AbstractThis study contributes to the understanding of the relationship between air temperature and convection by analyzing the characteristics of rainfall at the storm and convective rain cell scales. High spatial–temporal resolution (1 km, 5 min) estimates from a uniquely long weather radar record (24 years) were coupled with near-surface air temperature over Mediterranean and semiarid regions in the eastern Mediterranean. In the examined temperature range (5°–25°C), the peak intensity of individual convective rain cells was found to increase with temperature, but at a lower rate than the 7%°C−1 scaling expected from the Clausius–Clapeyron relation, while the area of the individual convective rain cells slightly decreases or, at most, remains unchanged. At the storm scale, the areal convective rainfall was found to increase with warmer temperatures, whereas the areal nonconvective rainfall and the stormwide area decrease. This suggests an enhanced moisture convergence from the stormwide extent toward th...

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