Potential of Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit to identify precipitating systems and associated upper‐level features in the Mediterranean region: Case studies

The potential of the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) observations to identify and characterize precipitating systems in the Mediterranean region is explored. Single channels or combination channels from AMSU‐A are used to detect and locate upper level potential vorticity anomalies that are often associated with intensification of surface low systems and occurrence of extreme events, while AMSU‐B data is used to detect precipitating areas. The motivation for the approach presented here is the direct use of satellite data as an alternative for reanalysis data sets for climatological studies of Mediterranean lows, without relying on retrieval algorithms. AMSU‐A channel 8 was found to be more suitable to identify upper level southward intrusions of stratospheric air than the difference of channels 7 and 5, which detects only vertically deep intrusions. A combination of AMSU‐B channels 3 and 5 is able to discriminate moderate to strongly precipitating areas with good agreement with Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) derived products and independent ground‐based data. A more stringent condition based on differences of channels 3 to 5 was found to be useful to detect deep convective clouds. We demonstrate the applicability of AMSU to detect upper level features and precipitating systems for selected case studies of extreme precipitation in the Mediterranean region. These tools will allow us to form a climatology of moderate to strongly precipitating systems, and to investigate their relationship with upper level features that may be precursors of extreme events, and to establish a typology of the precipitating systems in the Mediterranean region.