Comment on “Glory phenomenon informs of presence and phase state of liquid water in cold clouds” by Anatoly N. Nevzorov

In a recent publication “Glory phenomenon informs of presence and phase state of liquid water in cold clouds” Nevzorov [Nevzorov, A., 2006. Glory phenomenon informs of presence and phase state of liquid water in cold clouds. Atmospheric Research 82, 367–378] claims that “the convincing evidence has been provided that this sort of glory forms as a first-order bow from spherical particles with a refractive index of 1.81–1.82 and diameter over 20 μm”. This is a highly unusual finding because the refractive index of liquid water and ice is between 1.30 and 1.35 in the visible spectral range. The author concludes that “once more corroboration is gained […] of droplets of liquid water in specific phase state referred to amorphous water, or A-water”. Here we show that the phenomena described by the author are easily explained assuming liquid water with a refractive index of 1.33 and a realistic droplet size distribution with an effective radius of around 10 μm. We conclude that this type of observations does not corroborate the existence of amorphous water in the atmosphere. In a recent publication we showed how to quantitatively derive cloud optical thickness, effective droplet radius, and even the width of the size distribution from observations of the glory [Mayer, B., Schröder, M., Preusker, R., Schüller, L., 2004. Remote sensing of water cloud droplet size distributions using the backscatter glory: a case study. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 4, 1255–1263].     

Tropical Deforestation and the Kyoto Protocol

The current annual rates of tropical deforestation from Brazil and Indonesia alone would equal four-fifths of the emissions reductions gained by implementing the Kyoto Protocol in its first commitment period, jeopardizing the goal of Protocol to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference” with the climate system. We propose the novel concept of “compensated reduction”, whereby countries that elect to reduce national level deforestation to below a previously determined historical level would receive post facto compensation, and commit to stabilize or further reduce deforestation in the future. Such a program could create large-scale incentives to reduce tropical deforestation, as well as for broader developing country participation in the Kyoto Protocol, and leverage support for the continuity of the Protocol beyond the 2008–2012 first commitment period.     

Formation of spring warm water southwest of the Philippine Islands: Winter monsoon wake effects

From satellite observations and the reanalysis data, the late spring formation of warm water with temperature higher than 30 °C to the southwest of the Philippine Islands (8–18°N, 115–120°E) is investigated. Our analysis suggests that the blockage of the winter monsoon by the Philippine Islands results in this “Luzon warm water” (LWW) to the southwest of the Luzon Island and the “Vietnam cold tongue” (VCT) to the southeast of the Vietnam coast during winter and early spring in the South China Sea (SCS). The VCT is formed by the southward cold advection by the western boundary current and surface heat loss in the SCS. During the winter monsoon, the LWW first forms due to weak winds southwest of the Philippine Islands and the countering effect of warm Ekman advection against cold geostrophic advection. In spring its temperature exceeds 30 °C (LWW30), helped by strong solar radiation and the winter monsoon wake effect lee of the Philippine Islands. With the winter monsoon weakening, LWW30 extends southwestward in late spring but disappears quickly after the summer monsoon onset. Reduced latent heat flux in the winter monsoon wake is the dominant factor for the spring fast warming southwest of the Philippine Islands.Both VCT and LWW persist from winter to early spring as the Philippine Islands block the winter monsoon. Their interannual variations are correlated with the variation of the LWW30 since the blockage of the winter monsoon by the Philippine Islands modifies surface latent heat flux and ocean advection from winter to early spring. These results strongly suggest that the LWW30 is a result of land–sea–winter monsoon interaction.     

Contribution of the MODIS instrument to observations of deep convective storms and stratospheric moisture detection in GOES and MSG imagery

Past studies based on the NOAA/AVHRR and GOES I-M imager instruments have documented the link between certain storm top features referred to as the “cold-U/V” shape in the 10–12 μm IR band imagery and plumes of increased 3.7/3.9 μm band reflectivity. Later, similar features in the 3.7/3.9 μm band have been documented in the AVHRR/3 1.6 μm band imagery.The present work focuses on storm top observations utilizing the MODIS data. The MODIS instrument (available onboard NASA's EOS Terra and Aqua satellites) provides image data with significantly better geometrical resolution (in some of its bands) and broader range of spectral bands as compared to that from AVHRR/3 observations. One of the goals of this study is to evaluate the contribution of this new instrument to observations of convective storm tops. Besides the cloud top features linked to storm top microphysics and morphology, the paper also addresses the possibility of detection of lower stratospheric water vapor above cold convective storm tops. This issue is explored utilizing MODIS as well as GOES and MSG imagery.In addition, the paper discusses an alternative interpretation of the “cold-U/V” patterns at the top of intense storms by a mechanism of “plume masking” as suggested by some of the observations.     

An algorithm for generating stochastic cloud fields from radar profile statistics

An algorithm is described for generating stochastic three-dimensional (3D) cloud fields from time–height fields derived from vertically pointing radar. This model is designed to generate cloud fields that match the statistics of the input fields as closely as possible. The major assumptions of the algorithm are that the statistics of the fields are translationally invariant in the horizontal and independent of horizontal direction; however, the statistics do depend on height. The algorithm outputs 2D or 3D stochastic fields of liquid water content (LWC) and (optionally) effective radius. The algorithm is a generalization of the Fourier filtering methods often used for stochastic cloud models. The Fourier filtering procedure generates Gaussian stochastic fields from a “Gaussian” cross-correlation matrix, which is a function of a pair of heights and the horizontal distance (or “lag”). The Gaussian fields are nonlinearly transformed to give the correct LWC histogram for each height. The “Gaussian” cross-correlation matrix is specially chosen so that, after the nonlinear transformation, the cross-correlation matrix of the cloud mask fields approximately matches that derived from the input LWC fields. The cloud mask correlation function is chosen because the clear/cloud boundaries are thought to be important for 3D radiative transfer effects in cumulus.The stochastic cloud generation algorithm is tested with 3 months of boundary layer cumulus cloud data from an 8.6-mm wavelength radar on the island of Nauru. Winds from a 915-MHz wind profiler are used to convert the radar fields from time to horizontal distance. Tests are performed comparing the statistics of 744 radar-derived input fields to the statistics of 100 2D and 3D stochastic output fields. The single-point statistics as a function of height agree nearly perfectly. The input and stochastic cloud mask cross-correlation matrices agree fairly well. The cloud fractions agree to within 0.005 (the total cloud fraction is 18%). The cumulative distributions of optical depth, cloud thickness, cloud width, and intercloud gap length agree reasonably well. In the future, this stochastic cloud field generation algorithm will be used to study domain-averaged 3D radiative transfer effects in cumulus clouds.     

Some considerations of urban drainage design practice using experimental data

Two most frequently used procedures for obtaining design flow rates in urban drainage practice are design storm approach and historical storm approach. An alternative approach is possible if a series of measured flow rates at the outlet of urban catchment is available, so that the frequencies of flow rates are estimated directly. These three approaches are discussed using the measurements of rainfall and runoff at the experimental urban drainage catchment “Miljakovac” in Belgrade for the period 1981–1993.     

Spatial variation of extreme values for freezing rain

It is still a challenge today to get the statistical approach accepted by some transmission line engineers, namely for freezing rain icing loads. They see heavy icing storms as rare events and they still believe that in this case a sound engineering judgment is better than poor statistics. When they are convinced that statistics are good, such as for the flood problem, they do not hesitate to accept the probabilistic approach. Developing extreme values distributions of freezing-rain icing is however a difficult task. Because of the relatively small dimension of major freezing rain storms, freezing-rain icing is not a continuous “variate” at a particular site.One way of improving the statistics is to take simple icing measurements on a fine grid stations network. After only 17 years of measurements with Passive Ice Meters, good fit of extreme values is possible if we use “mesh”extreme values instead of “station” ones. Before pooling extreme values into a “mesh” or “region”distribution, some attention must be given to the homogeneity of the data within a given area. This has been done for four different regions of the province of Québec with very conclusive results. A mesh of about 50 km seems adequate with a temporal resolution of 12 h. Since transmission lines are spatial constructions, this finding can easily satisfy the need of the design engineers in defining icing loads. And, if some caution is given to identify special topographical features, a better knowledge of the spatial variation of icing makes also possible better line routing.     

Microhydrodynamics of flotation processes in the sea surface layer

The uppermost surface of the ocean forms a peculiarly important ecosystem, the sea surface microlayer (SML). Comprising the top 1–1000 μm of the ocean surface, the SML concentrates many chemical substances, particularly those that are surface active. Important economically as a nursery for fish eggs and larvae, the SML unfortunately is also especially vulnerable to pollution. Contaminants that settle out from the air, have low solubility, or attach to floatable matter tend to accumulate in the SML.Bubbles contribute prominently to the dynamics of air–sea exchanges, playing an important role in geochemical cycling of material in the upper ocean and SML. In addition to the movement of bubbles, the development of a bubble cloud interrelates with the single particle dynamics of all other bubbles and particles. In the early sixties, several in situ oceanographic techniques revealed an “unbelievably immense” number of coastal bubbles of radius 15–300 μm. The spatial and temporal variation of bubble numbers were studied; acoustical oceanographers now use bubbles as tracers to determine ocean processes near the ocean surface. Sea state and rain noises have both been definitively ascribed to the radiation from huge numbers of infant micro bubbles [The Acoustic Bubble. Academic Press, San Diego].Our research programme aims at constructing a hydrodynamic model for particle transport processes occurring at the microscale, in multi-phase flotation suspensions. Current research addresses bubble and floc microhydrodynamics as building blocks for a microscale transport model. This paper reviews sea surface transport processes in the microlayer and the lower atmosphere, and identifies those amenable to microhydrodynamic modelling and simulation. It presents preliminary simulation results including the multi-body hydrodynamic mobility functions for the modelling of “dynamic bubble filters” and floc suspensions. Hydrodynamic interactions versus spatial anisotropy and size of particle clouds are investigated.     

Elemental characterization and source identification of PM2.5 using Positive Matrix Factorization: The Malraux road tunnel, Nice, France

This work was dedicated to the characterization of the elemental composition of atmospheric particles associated with urban traffic. PM_2.5 sampling campaigns were conducted in an urban road tunnel within the area of Nice: the Malraux tunnel. Samples were analyzed by ICP-MS-DRC for the determination of 16 metallic trace elements: Na, Ti, V, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Sr, Rb, Cd, Sn, Sb and Pb. An in depth study was carried out on the PM_2.5 dataset collected with specific characterisation tools (enrichment factors, elemental ratio) and a receptor model: the Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF). The model showed that different profiles of emission could influence the ambient air of the tunnel and their contribution to the metal concentration in the air. Elemental fingerprints were used to attribute to each profile a specific emission source linked to road traffic. Finally, results showed that road traffic emissions could be divided into 3 main “subcategory” sources of emission: “soil resuspension” by automobile movement, “vehicular wear” and “fuel combustion”.     

Refraction of Rossby waves on a multiple β-plane

A multiple β-plane is introduced to explore the relation between plane and spherical Rossby waves. The fundamental problem, the refraction of a plane Rossby wave across a discontinuity in β, is solved. It is shown that refraction on the multiple β-plane agrees in the limit with refraction on the full sphere only if a suitable correction is made for the geometric distortion of the β-plane. The full spherical modes of Rossby waves trapped in a band about the equator (Longuet-Higgins, 1964) have their counterpart in a simple model consisting of an “equatorial” β-plane bounded above and below by “polar” β-planes.     

Estimation of sub-hourly DDF curves using scaling properties of hourly and sub-hourly data at partially gauged site

In urban drainage systems, knowledge of short-duration rainfall events can be considered as one of the most critical elements when their hydrological behaviour wants to be investigated. The temporal resolution of rainfall data usually available for practical applications is often lower than the data requested for the design procedures or mathematical models application, greatly affecting their reliability. Moreover, when high resolution rain gauges are available in the catchment, the registration period cannot be sufficiently long for obtaining practically usable statistical analyses. The present study proposes a method for estimating the distribution of sub-hourly extreme rainfalls at sites where data for time interval of interest do not exist, but rainfall data for longer duration are available. The proposed method is based on the “scale-invariance” (or “scaling”) theory whose concepts imply that statistical properties of the extreme rainfall processes for different temporal scales are self-related by a scale-changing operator involving only the scale ratio. The methodology is applied to extreme rainfall data from a rain gauge network within the metropolitan area of Palermo (Italy). Following the application, it is shown that the statistical properties of the rainfall series have a simple scaling property over the range of duration 10 min–24 h. A simple parsimonious analytical formulation for the DDF curves, which embodies the scaling behaviour, is presented.     

The climatology of tornadoes and waterspouts in Italy

In this work 10 years of reports collected by weather amateurs are used to define a preliminary climatology of tornadoes and waterspouts in Italy. The results show behaviors different from those observed in other countries. Generally, tornadoes and waterspouts are more frequent in late summer and autumn than in the other seasons. The seasonality of tornadoes and waterspouts appears different for different Italian zones, in particular in the Po Valley and Friulian plain and coast (south to the Alps) tornadoes and waterspouts are more frequent in spring and early summer while in the Tirrenian and Ionian coasts (western and southern Italy), tornadoes and waterspouts are more frequent in late summer and autumn. As observed in other studies (Brooks, H., E. and Doswell, C. A. III, 2001. Some aspects of the international climatology of tornadoes by damage classification. Atmos. Res., 56, 191–201.) Italian tornadoes and waterspouts are statistically weaker than in other countries but this difference cannot be completely ascribed to the presence of waterspouts. The “CAPE Storm-Relative-Helicity diagrams” and “Shear Magnitude diagrams” obtained for Italian tornadoes and waterspouts show different characteristics than those obtained for US. The cause of these differences is still unknown, it can rely in the sample selection (problems with the concept of proximity sounding) or in a real climatic effect.     

Climatology of meteorological “bombs” in the New Zealand region

Summary The purpose of this paper is to present a recently developed climatology of explosively developing south eastern Tasman Sea extra-tropical cyclones, or meteorological “bombs”, using a latitude dependent definition for meteorological bombs based on that of Simmonds and Keay (2000a, b), and Lim and Simmonds (2002). These highly transient systems, which have a damaging impact upon New Zealand, are frequently accompanied by destructive winds, flood rains, and coastal storm surges. Two cases are selected from the climatology and briefly described here. The first case study is the major flood and storm force wind event of June 20 to 21, 2002 that affected the Coromandel Peninsula region of the North Island of New Zealand. The second case was a “supercyclone” bomb that developed well to the southwest of New Zealand region during May 29 to 31, 2004, but which could easily have formed in the New Zealand region with catastrophic consequences. It was well-captured by the new high resolution Quikscat scatterometer instrument.This study extends the work of two of the authors (Buckley and Leslie, 2004; Buckley and Leslie, 2000; Qi and Leslie, 2000), on southern hemisphere meteorological bombs, to yet another geographical location. Here, we relied heavily on surface observations, scatterometer and other satellite-derived data, and weather radar imagery in developing the climatology.     

Nolan–Pollak type CN counters in the Vienna aerosol workshop

Three “standard” Nolan–Pollak (N–P) and a modified N–P design condensation nucleus (CN) counters were included in the Vienna Workshop on Intercomparison of Condensation Nuclei and Aerosol Particle counters. These counters came from diverse backgrounds, namely programs in USA, Europe and Australia. In this work, principles of the operation and previous history of calibration of the N–P expansion counter are briefly reviewed and comparisons between the particular counters used in the workshop are presented and discussed. Counting agreement was found to be very good between the N–P counters, typically better than ±12% for a range of aerosol sizes and compositions from a minimum diameter of 4 nm. The independently calibrated GIV CNC-440 (modified N–P type counter) also agreed well with the N–P counters. The minimum size sensitivity of the N–P counter was examined showing a lower detection limit for insoluble (Ag) particles of around 2.6±0.3 nm diameter.     

The 6 h climatology of thunderstorms and rainfalls in the Friuli Venezia Giulia Plain

Friuli Venezia Giulia is a region located in the North-Eastern part of Italy. It has the Adriatic Sea (Gulf of Trieste) on the South and the Julian and Carnic Alps surrounding it on the North. For these geographical properties thunderstorms and precipitations are common events in the plain of this region.The climatology of thunderstorms and rainfalls, considering 6 h interval periods, is studied in this work. It is shown how the thunderstorm frequency, based on the recording of at least three lightning strikes during the 6 h period, is 16%. The occurrence frequency of at least 1 mm of rain accumulated in 6 h is 24%, while that of at least 5 mm in 6 h is 14%.The daily and monthly distributions of these events are then stratified in three classes, based on their “intensity” (weak, medium and strong), and the different behaviors are analysed. Finally, an explanation for the main monthly rain frequency is sought by looking at only two sounding-derived indices and in particular at their annual cycles. The two indices (related to the potential instability and to the water vapour flux) attempt to summarize the “convective” and “flux” mechanisms for producing rain. It is found that in some particular periods of the year the rain-originating process seems well identifiable, while in many others the two processes seem to be concomitant.     

Combined wavelet and principal component analysis (WEof) of a scale-oriented model of coastal ocean gravity waves

Coastal ocean numerical modeling is basically the representation of the dynamics of the coastal ocean in a chosen range of length scales and over an associated frequency band, including the modeling of both coherent processes and associated transient processes. The ocean dynamical features can be individually identified by combining wavelet analysis for time and frequency localization and principal component analysis to “decorrelate” physically consistent structures. In the present paper, the so-called WEof analysis is applied for the extraction of external gravity waves and internal gravity wave lower modes in a simple case of a flat bottom, constant Brunt-Väisälä ocean. It is shown that, with some well known restrictive assumptions, WEof analysis is an efficient candidate for the recognition of frequency localized dynamical processes.     

Lifetime of the thunderstorm electric energy in the global atmospheric circuit and thunderstorm energy characteristics

The lifetime of electric energy in the atmosphere is introduced and investigated as is the total electric energy of the atmosphere related to the total mean rate of electric energy dissipation. This lifetime, as determined from general estimations and convenient analytical expressions, turns out to be very small – from about 10 to about 100 s, depending on the assumptions on the control parameters of principal sources in the global electric circuit. In particular the energy lifetime is less than the relaxation time of the “global condenser” and field relaxation time near the ground surface. It is explained by the high dissipative rate of the electric energy in the atmosphere, taking into account that the regions mainly contributing to the total energy and its dissipative rate are connected to the altitudes of active parts of electrified (thunderstorm) clouds in the atmosphere with exponentially increasing conductivity.     

Sounding-derived indices for neural network based short-term thunderstorm and rainfall forecasts

A neural network-based scheme to do a multivariate analysis for forecasting the occurrence and intensity of a meteo event is presented. Many sounding-derived indices are combined together to build a short-term forecast of thunderstorm and rainfall events, in the plain of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (hereafter FVG, NE Italy).For thunderstorm forecasting, sounding, lightning strikes and mesonet station data (rain and wind) from April to November of the years 1995–2002 have been used to train and validate the artificial neural network (hereafter ANN), while the 2003 and 2004 data have been used as an independent test sample. Two kind of ANNs have been developed: the first is a “classification model” ANN and is built for forecasting the thunderstorm occurrence. If this first ANN predicts convective activity, then a second ANN, built as a “regression model”, is used for forecasting the thunderstorm intensity, as defined in a previous article.The classification performances are evaluated with the ROC diagram and some indices derived from the Table of Contingency (like KSS, FAR, Odds Ratio). The regression performances are evaluated using the Mean Square Error and the linear cross correlation coefficient R.A similar approach is applied to the problem of 6 h rainfall forecast in the Friuli Venezia Giulia plain, but in this second case the data cover the period from 1992 to 2004. Also the forecasts of binary events (defined as the occurrence of 5, 20 or 40 mm of maximum rain), made by classification and regression ANN, were compared. Particular emphasis is given to the sounding-derived indices which are chosen in the first places by the predictor forward selection algorithm.     

Historical Climatology In Europe – The State Of The Art

This paper discusses the state of European research in historical climatology. This field of science and an overview of its development are described in detail. Special attention is given to the documentary evidence used for data sources, including its drawbacks and advantages. Further, methods and significant results of historical-climatological research, mainly achieved since 1990, are presented. The main focus concentrates on data, methods, definitions of the “Medieval Warm Period” and the “Little Ice Age”, synoptic interpretation of past climates, climatic anomalies and natural disasters, and the vulnerability of economies and societies to climate as well as images and social representations of past weather and climate. The potential of historical climatology for climate modelling research is discussed briefly. Research perspectives in historical climatology are formulated with reference to data, methods, interdisciplinarity and impacts.     

Some economics of ‘dangerous’ climate change: Reflections on the Stern Review

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change concluded that there can be “no doubt” the economic risks of business-as-usual (BAU) climate change are “very severe” [Stern, 2006. The Economics of Climate Change. HM Treasury, London, p. 188]. The total cost of climate change was estimated to be equivalent to a one-off, permanent 5–20% loss in global mean per-capita consumption today. And the marginal damage cost of a tonne of carbon emitted today was estimated to be around $312 [p. 344]. Both of these estimates are higher than most reported in the previous literature. Subsequently, a number of critiques have appeared, arguing that discounting is the principal explanation for this discrepancy. Discounting is important, but in this paper we emphasise that how one approaches the economics of risk and uncertainty, and how one attempts to model the very closely related issue of low-probability/high-damage scenarios (which we connect to the recent discussion of ‘dangerous’ climate change), can matter just as much. We demonstrate these arguments empirically, using the same models applied in the Stern Review. Together, the issues of risk and uncertainty on the one hand, and ‘dangerous’ climate change on the other, raise very strongly questions about the limits of a welfare-economic approach, where the loss of natural capital might be irreversible and impossible to compensate. Thus we also critically reflect on the state-of-the-art in integrated assessment modelling. There will always be an imperative to carry out integrated assessment modelling, bringing together scientific ‘fact’ and value judgement systematically. But we agree with those cautioning against a literal interpretation of current estimates. Ironically, the Stern Review is one of those voices. A fixation with cost-benefit analysis misses the point that arguments for stabilisation should, and are, built on broader foundations.