Influence of the Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation on Extreme Temperature Events in the Northern Hemisphere

The impact of the boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO) on extreme hot and cool events was investigated, by analyzing the observed and reanalysis data for the period from 1983 to 2012. It is found that the frequency of the extreme events in middle and high latitudes is significantly modulated by the BSISO convection in the tropics, with a 3–9-day lag. During phases 1 and 2 when the BSISO positive rainfall anomaly is primarily located over a northwest–southeast oriented belt extending from India to Maritime Continent and a negative rainfall anomaly appears in western North Pacific, the frequency of extreme hot events is 40% more than the frequency of non-extreme hot events. Most noticeable increase appears in midlatitude North Pacific (north of 40°N) and higher-latitude polar region.Two physical mechanisms are primarily responsible for the change of the extreme frequency. First, an upper-tropospheric Rossby wave train (due to the wave energy propagation) is generated in response to a negative heating anomaly over tropical western North Pacific in phases 1 and 2. This wave train consists of a strong high pressure anomaly center northeast of Japan, a weak low pressure anomaly center over Alaska, and a strong high pressure anomaly center over the western coast of United States. Easterly anomalies to the south of the two strong midlatitude high pressure centers weaken the climatological subtropical jet along 40°N, which is accompanied by anomalous subsidence and warming in North Pacific north of 40°N. Second, an enhanced monsoonal heating over South Asia and East Asia sets up a transverse monsoonal overturning circulation, with large-scale ascending (descending) anomalies over tropical Indian (Pacific) Ocean. Both the processes favor more frequent extreme hot events in higher-latitude Northern Hemisphere. An anomalous atmospheric general circulation model is used to confirm the tropical heating effect.     

Arctic Climate Changes Based on Historical Simulations (1900‒2013) with the CAMS-CSM

The Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences Climate System Model (CAMS-CSM) is a newly developed global climate model that will participate in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6. Based on historical simulations (1900?2013), we evaluate the model performance in simulating the observed characteristics of the Arctic climate system, which includes air temperature, precipitation, the Arctic Oscillation (AO), ocean temperature/salinity, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), snow cover, and sea ice. The model?data comparisons indicate that the CAMS-CSM reproduces spatial patterns of climatological mean air temperature over the Arctic (60°?90°N) and a rapid warming trend from 1979 to 2013. However, the warming trend is overestimated south of the Arctic Circle, implying a subdued Arctic amplification. The distribution of climatological precipitation in the Arctic is broadly captured in the model, whereas it shows limited skills in depicting the overall increasing trend. The AO can be reproduced by the CAMS-CSM in terms of reasonable patterns and variability. Regarding the ocean simulation, the model underestimates the AMOC and zonally averaged ocean temperatures and salinity above a depth of 500 m, and it fails to reproduce the observed increasing trend in the upper ocean heat content in the Arctic. The large-scale distribution of the snow cover extent (SCE) in the Northern Hemisphere and the overall decreasing trend in the spring SCE are captured by the CAMS-CSM, while the biased magnitudes exist. Due to the underestimation of the AMOC and the poor quantification of air–sea interaction, the CAMS-CSM overestimates regional sea ice and underestimates the observed decreasing trend in Arctic sea–ice area in September. Overall, the CAMS-CSM reproduces a climatological distribution of the Arctic climate system and general trends from 1979 to 2013 compared with the observations, but it shows limited skills in modeling local trends and interannual variability.     

Impacts of climate change on building energy demands in the intra-Americas region

It was recently reported a regional warming in the intra-Americas region where sea surface temperature exhibited increases exceeding 0.15 °C/decade and an accelerated air temperature rise that could impact building energy demands per capita (EDC). Reanalysis data is used herein to quantify the impacts of these warming trends on EDC. Results of the analysis depict a Southern Greater Antilles and inland South America with a positive annual EDC rate of 1–5 kWh per year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 2.6 and 4.5 scenarios were selected to analyze energy demand changes in the twenty-first century. A multi-model ensemble forecasts an EDC increase of 9.6 and 23 kWh/month in the RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 at the end of the twenty-first century, which may increase average building cooling loads in the region by 7.57 GW (RCP2.6) and 8.15 GW (RCP4.5), respectively. Furthermore, 4 of 9 (RCP2.6) and 7 of 9 (RCP4.5) of the major countries in this region have EDCs ranging between 1887 and 2252 kWh/year at the end of this century. Therefore, increased energy production and improved energy infrastructure will be required to maintain ideal indoor building conditions at the end of the twenty-first century in these tropical coastal regions as consequence of a warmer climate.     

Preface

Climate change is one of the most challenging issues faced by human beings. Although many remarkable achievements have been made in climate change research,there is still a tremendous amount of uncertainty in     

The Role of Planetary Boundary-Layer Parameterizations in the Air Quality of an Urban Area with Complex Topography

The effect of different planetary boundary-layer (PBL) parameterization schemes on the spatial distribution of atmospheric pollution over the complex topography of the greater Athens area is investigated. Four PBL schemes originally implemented in a numerical meteorological model and a fifth one simulating the urban effect are examined. Two different atmospheric conditions are analyzed; a typical summer and a typical winter pollution episode. The relative importance of chemical and physical processes of the pollution predictions is discussed using process analysis. It is revealed that, for primary pollutants, a local scheme seems more adequate to represent the maximum observed concentrations while, completely different in structure, a non-local scheme reproduces the mean observed values in the basin. Concerning secondary pollutants, peak concentration differences, due to the different PBL schemes, are smoothed out. Nevertheless, the PBL scheme selection shapes the horizontal and the vertical extension of maximum values. The non-local and semi non-local schemes are superior to the others, favouring strong vertical mixing and transport towards the surface. The stronger turbulence accommodated effectively by the semi non-local urban scheme enhances ozone production along the sea-breeze axis and preserves the high ozone concentrations during the nighttime hours in the urban core.     

Effects of the low-frequency zonal wind variation on the high frequency atmospheric variability over the tropics

Recently, there is increasing evidence on the interaction of atmospheric high-frequency (HF) variability with climatic low-frequency (LF) variability. In this study, we examine this relationship of HF variability with large scale circulation using idealized experiments with an aqua-planet Atmospheric GCM (with zonally uniform SST), run in different zonal momentum forcing scenarios. The effect of large scale circulation changes to the HF variability is demonstrated here. The HF atmospheric variability is enhanced over the westerly forced region, through easterly vertical shear. Our study also manifests that apart from the vertical wind shear, strong low-level convergence and horizontal zonal wind shear are also important for enhancing the HF variance. This is clearly seen in the eastern part of the forcing, where the HF activity shows relatively maximum increase, in spite of similar vertical shear over the forced regions. The possible implications for multi-scale interaction (e.g. MJO–ENSO interaction) are also discussed.     

Parameterization of Sheared Convective Entrainment in the First-Order Jump Model: Evaluation Through Large-Eddy Simulation

In this note, two different approaches are used to estimate the entrainment-flux to surface-flux ratio for a sheared convective boundary layer (CBL); both are derived under the framework of the first-order jump model (FOM). That suggested by Sun and Wang (SW approach) has the advantage that there is no empirical constant included, though the dynamics are described in an implicit manner. The second, which was proposed by Kim et al. and Pino et al. (KP approach), explicitly characterizes the dynamics of the sheared entrainment, but uncertainties are induced through the empirical constants. Their performances in parameterizing the CBL growth rate are compared and discussed, and a new value of the parameter A ₃ in the KP approach is suggested. Large-eddy simulation (LES) data are employed to test both approaches: simulations are conducted for the CBL growing under varying conditions of surface roughness, free-atmospheric stratification, and wind shear, and data used when the turbulence is in steady state. The predicted entrainment rates in each case are tested against the LES data. The results show that the SW approach describes the evolution of the sheared CBL quite well, and the KP approach also reproduces the growth of the CBL reasonably, so long as the value of A ₃ is modified to 0.6.     

Respiration of Recently-Fixed Plant Carbon Dominates Mid-Winter Ecosystem CO2 Production in Sub-Arctic Heath Tundra

Arctic ecosystems could provide a substantial positive feedback to global climate change if warming stimulates below-ground CO₂ release by enhancing decomposition of bulk soil organic matter reserves.Ecosystem respiration during winter is important in this context because CO₂ release from snow-covered tundra soils is a substantial component of annual net carbon (C) balance, and because global climate models predict that the most rapid rises in regional air temperature will occur in the Arctic during winter. In this manipulative field study, the relative contributions of plant and bulk soil organic matter C pools to ecosystem CO₂ production in mid-winter were investigated. We measured CO₂ efflux rates in Swedish sub-arctic heath tundra from control plots and from plots that had been clipped in the previous growing season to disrupt plant activity. Respiration derived from recently-fixed plant C (i.e., plant respiration, and respiration associated with rhizosphere exudates and decomposition of fresh litter) was the principal source of CO₂ efflux, while respiration associated with decomposition of bulk soil organic matter was low, and appeared relatively insensitive to temperature. These results suggest that warmer mid-winter temperatures in the Arctic may have a much greater impact on the cycling of recently-fixed, plant-associated C pools than on the depletion of tundra bulk soil C reserves, and consequently that there is a low potential for significant initial feedbacks from arctic ecosystems to climate change during mid-winter.     

Delayed action and uncertain stabilisation targets. How much will the delay cost?

Despite the growing concern about actual on-going climate change, there is little consensus on the scale and timing of actions needed to stabilise the concentrations of greenhouse gases. Many countries are unwilling to implement mitigation strategies, at least in the short term, and no agreement on an ambitious global stabilisation target has yet been reached. It is thus likely that international climate policies will be characterized by a high degree of uncertainty over the stringency of the climate objective, and that some countries might delay their participation to global action. What additional economic costs will this delay in the adoption of mitigation measures imply? What would the optimal short-term strategy be given the uncertainty surrounding the climate policy to come? Is there a hedging strategy that decision makers can adopt to cope with delayed action and uncertain targets? This paper addresses these questions by quantifying the economic implications of delaying mitigation action, and by computing the optimal abatement strategy in the presence of uncertainty about a global stabilisation target (which will be agreed upon in future climate negotiations). Results point to short-term inaction as the key determinant for the economic costs of ambitious climate policies. They also indicate that there is an effective hedging strategy that could minimise the cost of climate policy uncertainty over the global stabilisation target: a short-term moderate climate policy would be a good strategy to reduce the costs of delayed action and to cope with uncertainty about the outcome of future climate negotiations. By contrast, failing to curb emissions in the short term imposes rapidly increasing additional costs of compliance.     

Spatial trends in heavy metals and nitrogen deposition in Navarra (Northern Spain) based on moss analysis

A biomonitoring survey using the moss species Hypnum cupressiforme Hedw. was performed in the North of Navarra (Spain) in 2006. The levels of V, Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Zr, Cd, Hg and Pb, and the total nitrogen content were determined in the samples by means of ICP-MS, CV-AA, and the Kjeldahl method. PCA analysis showed a differentiation between lithogenic (V, Cr, Mn, Ni, As and Zr) and anthropogenic elements (Mn, Cu, Zn, Cd, Hg and Pb). Spatial distribution maps were drawn using the kriging method, in order to identify the most affected areas and the main pollution sources. A similar spatial distribution was observed for the elements belonging to each group separated by the PCA, showing an important contribution from metal industries located in the Basque Country, as well as influence of long-range transboundary pollution processes. Background levels were also determined for the study area, along with the contamination factor for the different elements analysed. Mosses seemed to be good biomonitors of N deposition in areas of accumulation.