Jurnal

Diagnosing Freezing Rain Events in Reanalysis and CMIP6 Climate Data

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ABSTRACT: Ice storms and freezing rain events significantly disrupt transportation and power infrastructure, posing serious risks to public safety. This study investigates the environmental conditions conducive to freezing rain and assesses how current climate models simulate these environments. We employ an ensemble precipitation typing approach utilizing three established algorithms (Bourgouin, Ramer, and Baldwin) to diagnose rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow in reanalysis products [fifth generation European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) atmospheric reanalysis (ERA5), Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55), and Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR); 1980-2019], as well as 15 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) climate models. Our findings reveal that, in agreement with observations, freezing rain predominantly affects the central and eastern United States, particularly the mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions, influenced by topographic features like the Appalachian Mountains. The algorithms exhibit hitrates of 51%-67% compared to station data, with false alarm rates around 35%. While reanalysis products generally align with one another, discrepancies exist, especially in CFSR, which exhibits high freezing-rain frequency due to a different underlying precipitation climatology. CMIP6 models broadly capture the regional climatology and seasonal cycle of freezing rain over the eastern United States, though the magnitude and frequency of events vary among models. Correlation analyses show that while most models reproduce the thermodynamic environments favorable for freezing rain, the strength of coupling between those environments and actual precipitation events at various time scales differs, revealing systematic differences in how freezing rain conditions are realized. This highlights the need for improvements in predictive methodologies to better capture precipitation dynamics.

KEYWORDS: Climatology; Freezing precipitation; Climate models

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

551.578 41 GOR d

Penerbit

Boston, USA : American Meteorological Society., 2026

Deskripsi Fisik

Page(s): 245-268; Illus

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

1558-8432

Klasifikasi

551.578 41

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

unspecified

Tipe Pembawa

volume

Edisi

Volume 65 (2026): Issue 2 (Feb 2026)

Subjek

climatology
Freezing rain – Research
Climate models

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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