The effect of rainfall on the metabolism of birds is poorly understood. We measured the metabolism as rate of oxygen consumption (VO2) of four male and four female American kestrels (Falco sparverius) using open-circuit respirometry. We measured VO2 during the spring at ambient temperatures (Ta) of 5, 10, 15, and 25 degrees C in air without rainfall and with simulated rainfall of 2.5 (low rainf...

Accurate rainfall estimations based on ground-based rainfall observations and satellite-based rainfall measurements are essential for hydrological and environmental modeling in the Qaidam Basin of China. We evaluated the accuracy of daily and monthly scale Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) rainfall products in the Qaidam Basin. A Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) was used to est...

Stochastic weather generators are useful for producing daily sequences that reproduce climatic statistics aggregated to, e.g., a monthly time scale, for use with biological simulation models. This paper describes a stochastic weather generator that disaggregates monthly rainfall by adjusting input parameters or by constraining output to match target rainfall totals, and demonstrates its use wit...

Tropical Applications of Meteorology Using Satellite and Ground-Based Observations (TAMSAT) rainfall estimates are used extensively across Africa for operational rainfall monitoring and food security applications; thus, regional evaluations ofTAMSATare essential to ensure its reliability. This study assesses the performance of TAMSAT rainfall estimates, along with the African Rainfall Climatolo...

Conventionally, the heaviest rainfall has been linked to the tallest, most intense convective storms. However, the global picture of the linkage between extreme rainfall and convection remains unclear. Here we analyse an 11-year record of spaceborne precipitation radar observations and establish that a relatively small fraction of extreme convective events produces extreme rainfall rates in any...

Most hydrologic/water quality (H/WQ) models that use rainfall as input assume spatial homogeneity of rainfall. Under this assumption this study assesses the variability induced in calibrated model parameters solely due to rainfall spatial variability. The AGNPS model and a network of 17 raingauges were used. Model parameters were estimated using rainfall observed at each gauge location, one at ...

Dengue fever is a major health problem in Vietnam, but its incidence differs from province to province. To understand this at the local level, we assessed the effect of four weather components (humidity, rainfall, temperature and sunshine) on the number of dengue cases in nine provinces of Vietnam. Monthly data from 1999 to 2009 were analysed by time-series regression using negative binomial mo...

The evolution of landslide displacement is affected by many factors. This paper studied the displacement monitoring data of Liangshuijing Landslide with Factor Analysis Method and found that the dominant factors influencing landslide displacement were in decreasing sequence: cumulative rainfall of anterior two months> rainfall of current month> the average reservoir level of current month>reser...

This paper describes an algorithm for disaggregating daily rainfall into sub-daily rainfall ‘fragments’ (continuous fine-resolution rainfall sequences whose total depth sums to the daily rainfall amount) under a future, warmer climate. The basis of the algorithm is to re-sample sub-daily fragments from the historical record conditional on the total daily rainfall amount and a range of temperatu...