The goal of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of coupling an existing model of orographic precipitation to a landscape evolution model. Precipitation in mountainous terrain can vary dramatically over short distances, and frequently varies an order of magnitude from the windward to leeward sides of a mountain range. Moreover, we see a distinct contrast in terrain slope on opposing sides of mountain ranges today, suggesting a correlation between orography and precipitation. Most landscape evolution studies do not account for the spatial variability in precipitation. This project evaluates whether the Linear Theory (LT) of Orographic Precipitation (Smith and Barstad, 2004) effectively simulates the asymmetric pattern of precipitation as compared to modern rainfall estimates from the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM). Preliminary results suggest that the LT model can do a remarkably good job of reproducing rainfall statistics *if* the number of yearly events can be adequately estimated.

Project Investigators: Dominik Schneider and Jean Braun