TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding Hail in the Earth System
AU - Allen, John T.
AU - Giammanco, Ian M.
AU - Kumjian, Matthew R.
AU - Jurgen Punge, Heinz
AU - Zhang, Qinghong
AU - Groenemeijer, Pieter
AU - Kunz, Michael
AU - Ortega, Kiel
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant AGS-1855054 (J. Allen and M. Kumjian). Q. Zhang was supported by the Chinese National Science Foundation (Grant 41330421). P. Groenemeijer's contribution was carried out within the project ARCS, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under Grant 01LP1525A and by Munich Re. H. J. Punge is supported by the Willis Research Network. We thank A. Rädler for her permission to include Figure 18, and Skylar Williams (CIMMS/NSSL) for her contribution of the MESH composite climatology (Figure 16, data used are available from https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/TOUBMM). The authors are grateful to the respective authors who contributed figures that provide the context for this review. Data used in Figures are available from the Institute for Home and Business Safety (https://ibhs.org/risk-research/hail/). Data and code to reproduce Figure are available online (https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/BBJN5O). Data for Figure are sourced from the European Severe Weather Dataset (ESWD) available online (https://eswd.eu). Data for Figure are available directly online (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/nexradinv/index.jsp). We are grateful to the authors who consented to the inclusion of figures from published work, and all relevant copyrights are described for the relevant figures.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - The processes leading to the development of hail and the distribution of these events worldwide are reviewed. Microphysical and physical characteristics of hail development are described to provide context of the notable gaps in our understanding of what drives hail to grow large, or what determines how it falls to the ground. Distributional characteristics of hail are explored, utilizing both surface observations of hailstones and remotely sensed observational data sets to identify opportunities and needs for new observations. These observational deficiencies contribute to our limited capacity to both forecast hail or its expected size and reduce the effectiveness of using favorable conditions for hail development as a proxy to frequency where observations are unavailable. Given the substantive influences of both climate variability and the changing Earth system on hail, the latest understanding of their contributions to risk are addressed. Applying this understanding of the distribution and physical characteristics of hail, the damage by hail to agriculture and insured property is assessed. Much remains unknown about the processes leading to hail growth and environmental controls on hail occurrence, size, and magnitude, particularly outside of the United States and Europe. A better understanding of the global occurrence of hail is also needed to better anticipate the hazard and associated impacts.
AB - The processes leading to the development of hail and the distribution of these events worldwide are reviewed. Microphysical and physical characteristics of hail development are described to provide context of the notable gaps in our understanding of what drives hail to grow large, or what determines how it falls to the ground. Distributional characteristics of hail are explored, utilizing both surface observations of hailstones and remotely sensed observational data sets to identify opportunities and needs for new observations. These observational deficiencies contribute to our limited capacity to both forecast hail or its expected size and reduce the effectiveness of using favorable conditions for hail development as a proxy to frequency where observations are unavailable. Given the substantive influences of both climate variability and the changing Earth system on hail, the latest understanding of their contributions to risk are addressed. Applying this understanding of the distribution and physical characteristics of hail, the damage by hail to agriculture and insured property is assessed. Much remains unknown about the processes leading to hail growth and environmental controls on hail occurrence, size, and magnitude, particularly outside of the United States and Europe. A better understanding of the global occurrence of hail is also needed to better anticipate the hazard and associated impacts.
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U2 - 10.1029/2019RG000665
DO - 10.1029/2019RG000665
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85082297350
SN - 8755-1209
VL - 58
JO - Reviews of Geophysics
JF - Reviews of Geophysics
IS - 1
M1 - e2019RG000665
ER -