Mesoscale convective systems in the Tibetan Plateau region 2000 - 2019

This data set contains tracks of Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) in the Tibetan Plateau region (15 – 50 N, 60 – 120 E) based on collocated satellite precipitation estimates (GPM IMERG v06) and IR brightness temperatures (NCEP/CPC) for the period 2000 - 2019. Each annual .h5 file contains a table with the individual MCS features and their characteristics in each 30 minute time step. Features that were assigned to the same MCS track are denoted with the same cell number. 

The files contain identified MCS tracks from three different tracking methods that differ in their applied criteria: 

- tbb: 221 K over 50 000 km2  during at least 3 hours

- cold core: 221 K over 50 000 km2  during at least 3 hours,  brightness temperature drop below 200 K once during the MCS lifetime 

- heavy rain core: 221 K over 50 000 km2  during at least 3 hours, brightness temperature drop below 200 K once during the MCS lifetime, at least 10 % of the cloud area contain match with rain rates > 5mm/h once during the MCS lifetime 

For scientific studies focusing on MCSs, it is recommended to use files from the combined tracking (Tracks_????_heavy_rain_core.h5), which assures that heavy rainfall is produced by the identified cloud features. 

Data sets for surface precipitation and brightness temperatures: 

- NCEP/CPC Brightness temperatures can be downloaded from https://\disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/GPM\ MERGIR\ V1/summary - - - GPM IMERG can be downloaded from https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/GPM 3IMERGHH 06/summary or from https://gpm.nasa.gov/data/directory 

Column names in .h5 files: 

'frame': timestep index in entire period 
'idx': time step index in month
'hdim_1': center latitude index
'hdim_2': center longitude index 
'num': feature number in month 
'threshold_value': lowest brightness temperature of contiguous area that meets minimum area (50 000 km2)
'feature': unique feature ID 
'time': times stamp
'timestr': time stamp as string 
'latitude': center latitude
'longitude': center longitude
'ncells': size of feature in number of pixels
'cell': unique track ID
'time_cell': time with respect to MCS initiation
'rain_flag': number of pixels with rain rates >= 5mm/h
'tp_flag': number of pixels within the 3000 m boundary of TP 
'total_precip': sum of precipitation 
'convective_precip': sum of precipitation from rain rates >= 5mm/h
'mean_temp': mean brightness temperature of entire cloud feature