Late Holocene Asian summer monsoon dynamics from small but complex networks of paleoclimate data

Internal variability of the Asian monsoon system and the relationship amongst its sub-systems, the Indian and East Asian Summer Monsoon, are not sufficiently understood to predict its responses to a future warming climate. Past environmental variability is recorded in Palaeoclimate proxy data. In the Asian monsoon domain many records are available, e.g. from stalagmites, tree-rings or sediment cores. They have to be interpreted in the context of each other, but visual comparison is insufficient. Heterogeneous growth rates lead to uneven temporal sampling. Therefore, computing correlation values is difficult because standard methods require co-eval observation times, and sampling-dependent bias effects may occur. Climate networks are tools to extract system dynamics from observed time series, and to investigate Earth system dynamics in a spatio-temporal context. We establish paleoclimate networks to compare paleoclimate records within a spatially extended domain. Our approach is based on adapted linear and nonlinear association measures that are more efficient than interpolation-based measures in the presence of inter-sampling time variability. Based on this new method we investigate Asian Summer Monsoon dynamics for the late Holocene, focusing on the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), the Little Ice Age (LIA), and the recent period of warming in East Asia. We find a strong Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) influence on the East Asian Summer Monsoon during the MWP. During the cold LIA, the ISM circulation was weaker and did not extend as far east. The most recent period of warming yields network results that could indicate a currently ongoing transition phase towards a stronger ISM penetration into China. We find that we could not have come to these conclusions using visual comparison of the data and conclude that paleoclimate networks have great potential to study the variability of climate subsystems in space and time.     

Projected climate change impact on Baltic Sea cyanobacteria

Compared to other phytoplankton groups, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria generally prefer high water temperatures for growth and are therefore expected to benefit from global warming. We use a coupled biological-physical model with an advanced cyanobacteria life cycle model to compare the abundance of cyanobacteria in the Baltic Sea during two different time periods (1969–1998; 2069–2098). For the latter, we find prolonged growth and a more than twofold increase in the climatologically (30 years) averaged cyanobacteria biomass and nitrogen fixation. Additional sensitivity experiments indicate that the biological-physical feedback mechanism through light absorption becomes more important with global warming. In general, we find a nonlinear response of cyanobacteria to changes in the atmospheric forcing fields as a result of life-cycle related feedback mechanisms. Overall, the sensitivity of the cyanobacteria-driven system suggests that biological-physical and life-cycle related feedback mechanisms are important and must therefore be included in future projection studies.     

A Double-Canyon Radiation Scheme for Multi-Layer Urban Canopy Models

We develop a double-canyon radiation scheme (DCEP) for urban canopy models embedded in mesoscale numerical models based on the Building Effect Parametrization (BEP). The new scheme calculates the incoming and outgoing longwave and shortwave radiation for roof, wall and ground surfaces for an urban street canyon characterized by its street and building width, canyon length, and the building height distribution. The scheme introduces the radiative interaction of two neighbouring urban canyons allowing the full inclusion of roofs into the radiation exchange both inside the canyon and with the sky. In contrast to BEP, we also treat direct and diffuse shortwave radiation from the sky independently, thus allowing calculation of the effective parameters representing the urban diffuse and direct shortwave radiation budget inside the mesoscale model. Furthermore, we close the energy balance of incoming longwave and diffuse shortwave radiation from the sky, so that the new scheme is physically more consistent than the BEP scheme. Sensitivity tests show that these modifications are important for urban regions with a large variety of building heights. The evaluation against data from the Basel Urban Boundary Layer Experiment indicates a good performance of the DCEP when coupled with the regional weather and climate model COSMO-CLM.     

High Resolution Köppen‐Geiger Classifications of Paleoclimate Simulations

The development and application of an algorithm to compute Köppen‐Geiger climate classifications from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) and Paleo Model Intercomparison Project (PMIP) climate model simulation data is described in this study. The classification algorithm was applied to data from the PMIP III paleoclimate experiments for the Last Glacial Maximum, 21k years before present (yBP), Mid‐Holocene (6k yBP) and the Pre‐Industrial (0k yBP, control run) time slices. To infer detailed classification maps, the simulation datasets were interpolated to a higher resolution. The classification method presented is based on the application of Open Source Software, and the implementation is described with attention to detail. The source code and the exact input data sets as well as the resulting data sets are provided to enable the application of the presented approach.     

A dynamic 2DH flocculation model for coastal domains

Ocean Dynamics - A dynamic two-dimensional depth-averaged (2DH) parameterization for flocculation of cohesive sediments is proposed based on the kinetic model by Winterwerp (J Hydraul Res...