More Urbanization Could Mean More Rain for Cities

More Urbanization Could Mean More Rain for Cities Objective ● Develop process‐level understanding of the role of urban land use and aerosols on urban rainfall dynamics Approach ● Analyze satellite observations and in situ measurements of rainfall over upwind, downwind, and urban core regions ● Examine the effects of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentration and city size on propagating storms using convection‐ permitting Weather Research and Forecasting model simulations Impact ● Heavily polluted big cities are more prone to intense rainfall ● This study provides a mechanistic understanding of how urban aerosols can prompt invigoration of city‐scale rainfall ● Study underlines the importance of including aerosol‐cloud processes in models to understand predict extreme rainfall events over cities A schematic of storm processes in (A) a clean rural area, (B) a clean urban city, (C) a polluted urban city, and (D) a heavily polluted, big urban city. Urban heat island effects and urban aerosols both increase with the spread of a city. Sarangi C, SN Tripathi, Y Qian, S Kumar, and LR Leung. 2018. “Aerosol and Urban Land Use Effect on Rainfall Around Cities in Indo‐Gangetic Basin from Observations and Cloud Resolving Model Simulations. ” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 123: 3645‐ 3667. https: //doi. org/10. 1002/2017 JD 028004