Sharing the reduction effort to limit global warming to 2°C

In order to stabilize long-term greenhouse gas concentrations at 450 ppm CO₂-eq or lower, developed countries as a group should reduce emissions by 25–40% below 1990 levels by 2020, while developing countries' emissions need to be reduced by around 15–30%, relative to their baseline levels, according to the IPCC and our earlier work. This study examines 19 other studies on the emission reductions attributed to the developed and developing countries for meeting a 450 ppm target. These studies considered different allocation approaches, according to equity principles. The effect of the assumed global emissions cap in these studies is analysed. For developed countries, the original reduction range of 25–40% by 2020 is still within the average range of all studies, but does not cover it completely. Comparing the studies shows that assuming a global emissions cap of 5–15% above 1990 levels by 2020 generally leads to more stringent reduction targets than when a global emissions cap of 20–30% above 1990 levels is assumed. For developing countries, the reduction range of 15–30% below their baseline levels by 2020 corresponds to an increase on the 1990 level from 70% (about the 2006 level) to 120%. Reducing deforestation emissions by 50% below baseline levels by 2020 may relax the emission reductions for either group of countries; for developing countries by about 7% or for developed countries by about 15% (but not for both).     

A Response to the Letter of Da-Lin Zhang

We appreciate many of Zhang's critical comments and constructive recommendations(Zhang 2002) for the reform of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (AAS). An annualAAS Editorial Board meeting was held on 19 December 2001 at the Institute of AtmosphericPhysics (IAP) of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Zhang's letter (Zhang 2002) was distributed to     

Is the Isentropic Surface Always Impermeable to the Potential Vorticity Substance?

The impermeability of isentropic surfaces by the potential vorticity substance (PVS) has often been used to help understand the generation of potential vorticity in the presence of diabatic heating and friction.In this study,we examined singularities of isentropic surfaces that may develop in the presence of diabatic heating and the fictitious movements of the isentropic surfaces that are involved in deriving the PVS impermeability theorem.Our results show that such singularities could occur in the upper troposphere as a result of intense convective-scale motion,at the cloud top due to radiative cooling,or within the well-mixed boundary layer.These locally ill-defined conditions allow PVS to penetrate across an isentropic surface.We conclude that the PVS impermeability theorem is generally valid for the stably stratified atmosphere in the absence of diabatic heating.     

Preface to Special Issue on the National Report to the IUGG Centennial by CNC-IAMAS(2011–2018)

正The 27th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics(IUGG), which also marks the 100 th anniversary of IUGG, will be held during 8–18 July 2019 in Montréal, Canada. The Chinese National Committee(CNC)for the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences(IAMAS) has a more than 30-year tradition of     

Correction to “the vertical distribution of climate forcings and feedbacks from the surface to top of atmosphere”

We discuss here a mistake in the analysis of Previdi and Liepert (Clim Dyn, 2011). In that article, the surface albedo radiative kernels were calculated incorrectly. We present in this brief comment the corrected albedo kernels. We then use these kernels to compute the surface albedo radiative feedback in climate model simulations driven by increasing carbon dioxide, as in Previdi and Liepert (Clim Dyn, 2011). We find that the use of the corrected albedo kernels does not change the conclusions of our earlier work.     

An Introduction to the New Book-GEOSTROPHIC WAVE CIRCULATIONS

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Application of the delta‐Eddington method to the absorption of solar radiation in the atmosphere

Abstract

A model to compute rapidly the absorption of solar radiation in the atmosphere is described. The model is based partially on the parameterization of Lacis and Hansen and also makes use of the delta‐Eddington method. In addition to absorption by ozone and water vapour, and scattering by air molecules and clouds, the mode1 includes absorption and scattering by aerosols. Good agreement is found in comparison with the Lacis and Hansen parameterization in the absence of clouds and aerosol. The present model represents an improvement in the treatment of scattering by clouds. Its main advantage though, is in its flexibility in allowing for interactions with the atmospheric aerosol.     

On the Mechanism of the Locking of the El Nino Event Onset Phase to Boreal Spring

The mechanism of the locking of the E1 Nino event onset phase to boreal spring （from April to June） in an intermediate coupled ocean-atmosphere model is investigated. The results show that the seasonal variation of the zonal wind anomaly over the equatorial Pacific associated with the seasonal variation of the ITCZ is the mechanism of the locking in the model. From January to March of the E1 Nino year, the western wind anomaly over the western equatorial Pacific can excite the downwelling Kelvin wave that propagates eastward to the eastern and middle Pacific by April to June. From April to December of the year before the E1 Nifio year, the eastern wind anomaly over the equatorial Pacific forces the downwelling Rossby waves that modulate the ENSO cycle. The modulation and the reflection at the western boundary modulate the time of the transition from the cool to the warm phase to September of the year before the E1 Nifio year and cause the strongest downwelling Kelvin wave from the reflected Rossby waves at the western boundary to arrive in the middle and eastern equatorial Pacific by April to June of the E1 Nino year. The superposition of these two kinds of downwelling Kelvin waves causes the El Nino event to tend to occur from April to June.     

Are homeowners willing to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change?

The need to adapt to climate change impacts, whilst simultaneously limiting greenhouse gas emissions, requires that the government’s efforts are joined by public action. In England and Wales, housing contributes significantly to the emissions and many properties are at risk of flooding. This paper investigates the preparedness of homeowners in England and Wales to make changes to their homes in response to the predicted effects of climate change. A telephone survey of 961 homeowners investigated their interest in purchasing mitigation and adaptation improvements against their concern about climate change, awareness of flood risk and attribution of responsibility for action. Whilst the majority of homes had some energy-saving improvements, few were found to have property-level flood protection. The high levels of awareness about climate change and flooding were coupled with the perception of risks as low. Whilst some respondents accepted personal responsibility for action, most believed that the authorities were responsible for flood protection, and would not pay the costs required to make their home more energy-efficient and better prepared for the eventuality of floods. The results suggest that there is scope for further improvement of energy-saving measures, and that the levels of adoption of flood-protection measures are very low. Multi-faceted strategies, including more effective communication of risks and responsibilities, incentives, and material support for the poorest, will need to be developed to overcome the current reluctance by homeowners to invest in flood-protection measures and further energy conservation solutions in the future.     

Response of the Intensity of Subtropical High in the Northern Hemisphere to Solar Activity

Using the intensity data of each northern subtropical high measured by monthly 500 hPa height charts for the recent 38 years (1954-1991), we calculate their correlations with the monthly sunspot number and monthly solar radio flux at 10.7 cm wave length, respectively. Through strict test, we further confirm a series of high correlations. Next, using a method called the non-integer (year) wave, the significant response of each subtropical high’s intensity to so-lar activity at its main period of 10.9-year length is found. Special attention is paid to that of the eastern Pacific high, the possible mechanism of such sensible response is also analysed.     

What are the limits to oil palm expansion?

Palm oil production has boomed over the last decade, resulting in an expansion of the global oil palm planting area from 10 to 17 Million hectares between 2000 and 2012. Previous studies showed that a significant share of this expansion has come at the expense of tropical forests, notably in Indonesia and Malaysia, the current production centers. Governments of developing and emerging countries in all tropical regions increasingly promote oil palm cultivation as a major contributor to poverty alleviation, as well as food and energy independence. However, being under pressure from several non-governmental environmental organizations and consumers, the main palm oil traders have committed to sourcing sustainable palm oil. Against this backdrop we assess the area of suitable land and what are the limits to future oil palm expansion when several constraints are considered. We find that suitability is mainly determined by climatic conditions resulting in 1.37 billion hectares of suitable land for oil palm cultivation concentrated in twelve tropical countries. However, we estimate that half of the biophysically suitable area is already allocated to other uses, including protected areas which cover 30% of oil palm suitable area. Our results also highlight that the non-conversion of high carbon stock forest (>100 t AGB/ha) would be the most constraining factor for future oil palm expansion as it would exclude two-thirds of global oil palm suitable area. Combining eight criteria which might restrict future land availability for oil palm expansion, we find that 234 million hectares or 17% of worldwide suitable area are left. This might seem that the limits for oil palm expansion are far from being reached but one needs to take into account that some of this area might be hardly accessible currently with only 18% of this remaining area being under 2 h transportation to the closest city and that growing demand for other agricultural commodities which might also compete for this land has not been yet taken into account.     

Application of the Hilbert–Huang Transform to the Estimation of Air-Sea Turbulent Fluxes

The Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) is applied to analyzing the turbulent time series obtained within the atmospheric boundary layer over the ocean. A method based on the HHT is introduced to reduce the influence of non-turbulent motions on the eddy-covariance based flux by removing non-turbulent modes from the time series. The scale dependence of the flux is examined and a gap mode is identified to distinguish between turbulent modes and non-turbulent modes. To examine the effectiveness of this method it is compared with three conventional methods (block average, moving-window average, and multi-resolution decomposition). The data used are from three sonic anemometers installed on a moored buoy at about 6, 4 and 2.7 m height above the sea surface. For each method, along-wind and cross-wind momentum fluxes and sensible heat fluxes at the three heights are calculated. According to the assumption of a constant-flux layer, there should be no significant difference between the fluxes at the three heights. The results show that the fluxes calculated using HHT exhibit a smaller difference and higher correlation than the other methods. These results support the successful application of HHT to the estimation of air-sea turbulent fluxes.     

On the Mechanism of the Locking of the El Nio Event Onset Phase to Boreal Spring

1. Introduction The observed facts show that the ENSO cycle has obvious phase-locking and oscillates irregularly (An and Wang, 2001; Kaplan et al., 1998). Based on Zibiak and Cane's (1987) model (hereafter, the Z-C model) and simple, coupled ocean-atmosph…     

The distribution of the total ozone values in the end of the polar winter—the key to the forecast of extreme seasons?

The possibility to use the observations of the total ozone values in the atmosphere (TO) in the end of polar winters as the indicator of the cold accumulation in the troposphere and the type of its circulation is considered. The influence of TO over polar regions on the approach of early and late circulation reconstructions in the stratosphere and the following weather type in spring-summer season is concluded.     

New Approach to Study the Evolution of Rossby Wave Packet

The average variational principle was employed in this paper to study the evolution of large-scale and slowly varying Rossby wave packet with basic flow both in barotropic and baroclinic atmospheres. The evolution of the structure of Rossby wave packet with both time and space was studied. The results obtained in this paper are similar to the results of by WKBJ method. In addition, the dispersive process of the wave packet was analysed by taking Gaussian type wave packet as an initial disturbance. The valid time scale for application of wave packet theory in the atmosphere was obtained.     

Modeling to evaluate the response of savanna-derived cropland to warming–drying stress and nitrogen fertilizers

Many savannas in West Africa have been converted to croplands and are among the world’s regions most vulnerable to climate change due to deteriorating soil quality. We focused on the savanna-derived cropland in northern Ghana to simulate its sensitivity to projected climate change and nitrogen fertilization scenarios. Here we show that progressive warming–drying stress over the twenty-first century will enhance soil carbon emissions from all kinds of lands of which the natural ecosystems will be more vulnerable to variation in climate variables, particularly in annual precipitation. The carbon emissions from all croplands, however, could be mitigated by applying nitrogen fertilizer at 30–60 kg N ha^???1 year^???1. The uncertainties of soil organic carbon budgets and crop yields depend mainly on the nitrogen fertilization rate during the first 40 years and then are dominated by climate drying stress. The replenishment of soil nutrients, especially of nitrogen through fertilization, could be one of the priority options for policy makers and farm managers as they evaluate mitigation and adaptation strategies of cropping systems and management practices to sustain agriculture and ensure food security under a changing climate.