The Back Trajectory Study for Selected Extreme Rainfall Events Over Iraq

• Published in: IOP conference series. Earth and environmental science 2023-08, Vol.1223 (1), p.12006
• Main Authors: Mohammed, Ali J., Hashim, Ahmed A., Kadhum, Jasim H., Mohammed, Samir K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air masses; Extreme; Extreme weather; Hydrology; HYSPLIT; Lagrangian; Precipitation; Precipitations; Rainfall; Red Sea
• ISSN: 1755-1307; 1755-1315
• DOI: 10.1088/1755-1315/1223/1/012006

The Precipitations conditions having special attention in the last decade due to their impact on human health, ecosystems and other aspects such as agriculture, and hydrology. The ECMWF ERA-Interim 15-hourly (00 and 15 UTC) total precipitations in a 1° x 1° grid covering Iraq, from 29° N to 38° N and from 39° W to 48° E, with a total of 10 by 10 cells, was used. At each grid point, extremes were defined as those events in which total precipitations were above the 90 th percentile for the 25 years period 1994-2019. The aim of this work is to study the precipitation cumulative extreme events in Iraq and studying the back trajectory pathway from the origin to rejoin by using the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model. 60% of the precipitation cumulative extreme events occurred during the second decade. In all regions, there are important peaks in the cumulative precipitation events in 2006,2013,2014, 2016 and 2018 representing 40% of the cumulative perceptions events. The back-trajectories of rainfall events are associated with the advection of air masses from the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf is the most influential on the amount of rain and the percentage of saturation of air masses that reach Iraq. The Mediterranean cyclone is the main source of rainfall in Iraq.