Workshop on Indices and Indicators for Climate Extremes: Asheville, NC, USA, 3–6 June 1997 Breakout Group B: Precipitation

A uniform, international reference system of precipitation indices would greatly facilitate assessment of changes in global precipitation patterns, intensities and extremes. However, national/regional differences in precipitation monitoring standards, data quality control procedures, and product development practices complicate efforts to develop such a system. This report represents the results of Working Group B's concerted effort to examine in detail the problems associated with the development of the needed indicators and the Group's recommendations to address the identified issues. The Group concluded that a successful strategy must define a minimum set of indices/indicators based on higher quality data that would represent a global base set. The Group identified a set of indices for this purpose. This base data set should be complemented where possible by countries/regions having the data sets and processing resources to do more.     

Climate,conflict, and social stability: what does the evidence say?

Are violent conflict and socio-political stability associated with changes in climatological variables? We examine 50 rigorous quantitative studies on this question and find consistent support for a causal association between climatological changes and various conflict outcomes, at spatial scales ranging from individual buildings to the entire globe and at temporal scales ranging from an anomalous hour to an anomalous millennium. Multiple mechanisms that could explain this association have been proposed and are sometimes supported by findings, but the literature is currently unable to decisively exclude any proposed pathway. Several mechanisms likely contribute to the outcomes that we observe.     

Glacio-Meteorological Investigations On Vatnajökull, Iceland, Summer 1996: An Overview

We give an overview of a glacio-meteorological experiment carried out in the summer (melt season) of 1996 on the largest European ice cap, Vatnajökull, Iceland (area 8000 km²; altitude range: from sea level to about 2000 m). The main goal was to understand how the energy used in the melting of snow and ice is delivered to the surface. Many meteorological stations were operated simultaneously on the ice cap, at almost all of which profile measurements were made. Cable balloons and radiosondes were used to probe the vertical structure of the boundary layer. It appears that the flow near the surface is katabatic most of the time, with the height of the wind maximum varying between a few metres and a few tens of metres. It is only during the passage of intense storms that the katabatic wind in the melt zone disappears. Global radiation increases significantly with altitude. Surface albedo varies enormously in space and time, with very low values ( 0.1) being found at many places because of the melt out of volcanic ash layers. If we consider the total melt in the period 22 May–31 August 1996, we conclude that radiation typically provides two-thirds of the melt energy, and turbulent exchange of heat one-third. At locations high on the glacier, turbulent exchange becomes less significant.     

气象服务:研究新情况,解决新问题

"气象服务是气象工作的出发点和归宿",这句气象人十分熟知的话,把气象服务在整个气象工作中的比重和作用阐述得非常清楚.