Turbulent fluxes from Helipod flights above quasi-homogeneous patches within the LITFASS area

Turbulent fluxes of sensible and latent heat were measured with the helicopter-borne turbulence probe Helipod over a heterogeneous landscape around the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg during the STINHO-2 and LITFASS-2003 field experiments. Besides the determination of area-averaged heat fluxes, the analysis focused on different aspects of the response of the turbulent structure of the convective boundary layer (CBL) on the surface heterogeneity. A special flight pattern was designed to study flux profiles both over quasi-homogeneous sub-areas of the study region (representing the major land use types—forest, farmland, water) and over a typical mixture of the different surfaces. Significant differences were found between the heat fluxes over the individual surfaces along flight legs at about 80 m above ground level, in agreement with large-aperture scintillometer measurements. This flux separation was still present during some flights at levels near the middle of the CBL. Different scales for the blending height and horizontal heterogeneity were calculated, but none of them could be identified as a reliable indicator of the mixing state of the lower CBL. With the exception of the flights over water, the latent heat flux measurements generally showed a larger statistical error when compared with the sensible heat flux. Correlation coefficients a nd integral length scales were used to characterise the interplay between the vertical transport of sensible and latent heat, which was found to vary between ‘fairly correlated’ and ‘decoupled’, also depending on the soil moisture conditions.     

The eastward shift of the Walker Circulation in response to global warming and its relationship to ENSO variability

This study investigates the global warming response of the Walker Circulation and the other zonal circulation cells (represented by the zonal stream function), in CMIP3 and CMIP5 climate models. The changes in the mean state are presented as well as the changes in the modes of variability. The mean zonal circulation weakens in the multi model ensembles nearly everywhere along the equator under both the RCP4.5 and SRES A1B scenarios. Over the Pacific the Walker Circulation also shows a significant eastward shift. These changes in the mean circulation are very similar to the leading mode of interannual variability in the tropical zonal circulation cells, which is dominated by El Niño Southern Oscillation variability. During an El Niño event the circulation weakens and the rising branch over the Maritime Continent shifts to the east in comparison to neutral conditions (vice versa for a La Niña event). Two-thirds of the global warming forced trend of the Walker Circulation can be explained by a long-term trend in this interannual variability pattern, i.e. a shift towards more El Niño-like conditions in the multi-model mean under global warming. Further, interannual variability in the zonal circulation exhibits an asymmetry between El Niño and La Niña events. El Niño anomalies are located more to the east compared with La Niña anomalies. Consistent with this asymmetry we find a shift to the east of the dominant mode of variability of zonal stream function under global warming. All these results vary among the individual models, but the multi model ensembles of CMIP3 and CMIP5 show in nearly all aspects very similar results, which underline the robustness of these results. The observed data (ERA Interim reanalysis) from 1979 to 2012 shows a westward shift and strengthening of the Walker Circulation. This is opposite to what the results in the CMIP models reveal. However, 75 % of the trend of the Walker Circulation can again be explained by a shift of the dominant mode of variability, but here towards more La Niña-like conditions. Thus in both climate change projections and observations the long-term trends of the Walker Circulation seem to follow to a large part the pre-existing dominant mode of internal variability.     

High-resolution climate simulation of the last glacial maximum

The climate of the last glacial maximum (LGM) is simulated with a high-resolution atmospheric general circulation model, the NCAR CCM3 at spectral truncation of T170, corresponding to a grid cell size of roughly 75 km. The purpose of the study is to assess whether there are significant benefits from the higher resolution simulation compared to the lower resolution simulation associated with the role of topography. The LGM simulations were forced with modified CLIMAP sea ice distribution and sea surface temperatures (SST) reduced by 1°C, ice sheet topography, reduced CO₂, and 21,000 BP orbital parameters. The high-resolution model captures modern climate reasonably well, in particular the distribution of heavy precipitation in the tropical Pacific. For the ice age case, surface temperature simulated by the high-resolution model agrees better with those of proxy estimates than does the low-resolution model. Despite the fact that tropical SSTs were only 2.1°C less than the control run, there are many lowland tropical land areas 4–6°C colder than present. Comparison of T170 model results with the best constrained proxy temperature estimates (noble gas concentrations in groundwater) now yield no significant differences between model and observations. There are also significant upland temperature changes in the best resolved tropical mountain belt (the Andes). We provisionally attribute this result in part as resulting from decreased lateral mixing between ocean and land in a model with more model grid cells. A longstanding model-data discrepancy therefore appears to be resolved without invoking any unusual model physics. The response of the Asian summer monsoon can also be more clearly linked to local geography in the high-resolution model than in the low-resolution model; this distinction should enable more confident validation of climate proxy data with the high-resolution model. Elsewhere, an inferred salinity increase in the subtropical North Atlantic may have significant implications for ocean circulation changes during the LGM. A large part of the Amazon and Congo Basins are simulated to be substantially drier in the ice age—consistent with many (but not all) paleo data. These results suggest that there are considerable benefits derived from high-resolution model regarding regional climate responses, and that observationalists can now compare their results with models that resolve geography at a resolution comparable to that which the proxy data represent.     

In situ measurements of contributions to the global electrical circuit by a thunderstorm in southeastern Brazil

The global electrical circuit, which maintains a potential of about 280 kV between the earth and the ionosphere, is thought to be driven mainly by thunderstorms and lightning. However, very few in situ measurements of electrical current above thunderstorms have been successfully obtained. In this paper, we present dc to very low frequency electric fields and atmospheric conductivity measured in the stratosphere (30–35 km altitude) above an active thunderstorm in southeastern Brazil. From these measurements, we estimate the mean quasi-static conduction current during the storm period to be 2.5 ± 1.25 A. Additionally, we examine the transient conduction currents following a large positive cloud-to-ground (+ CG) lightning flash and typical − CG flashes. We find that the majority of the total current is attributed to the quasi-static thundercloud charge, rather than lightning, which supports the classical Wilson model for the global electrical circuit.     

A New Tethered Balloon-Borne Payload for Fine-Scale Observations in the Cloudy Boundary Layer

A new scientific payload is introduced for fine-scale measurements of meteorological (wind vector, static air temperature, humidity, and air pressure) and microphysical (aerosol particles and cloud droplets) properties, suspended below a tethered balloon. The high resolution sensors and the tethered balloon are described. Measurements in a lifted fog layer from a first field campaign are presented.The detailed investigation of the fog/haze and the temperature inversion layer demonstrates the damping influence of the fog on temperature fluctuations, while thewind fluctuations are significantly decreased by theevolving temperature inversion, whichwas about 30 m above the fog layer.From spectral analysis the noise floors of the high-resolution sensors are determined to10^-6 kg m^-3 for the LWC (liquid water content) and 4 mK for the fast temperature sensor (UFT-B). The correlation betweentemperature and LWC structures in shallow haze layers is investigated. The release of latent heat and the corresponding warming in the haze of about 0.1 K could be quantified.     

Multi-Source Emission Determination Using an Inverse-Dispersion Technique

Inverse-dispersion calculations can be used to infer atmospheric emission rates through a combination of downwind gas concentrations and dispersion model predictions. With multiple concentration sensors downwind of a compound source (whose component positions are known) it is possible to calculate the component emissions. With this in mind, a field experiment was conducted to examine the feasibility of such multi-source inferences, using four synthetic area sources and eight concentration sensors arranged in different configurations. Multi-source problems tend to be mathematically ill-conditioned, as expressed by the condition number κ. In our most successful configuration (average κ = 4.2) the total emissions from all sources were deduced to within 10% on average, while component emissions were deduced to within 50%. In our least successful configuration (average κ = 91) the total emissions were calculated to within only 50%, and component calculations were highly inaccurate. Our study indicates that the most accurate multi-source inferences will occur if each sensor is influenced by only a single source. A “progressive” layout is the next best: one sensor is positioned to “see” only one source, the next sensor is placed to see the first source and another, a third sensor is placed to see the previous two plus a third, and so on. When it is not possible to isolate any sources κ is large and the accuracy of a multi-source inference is doubtful.     

Penetration of sunlight into a canopy: Explicit models based on vertical and horizontal leaf projections

The projections of leaf areas onto a horizontal plane and onto a vertical plane are examined for their utility in characterizing canopies for sunlight penetration (direct beam only) models. These projections exactly specify the penetration if the projections on the principal plane of the normals to the top surfaces of the leaves are in the same quadrant as the Sun. Inferring the total leaf area from these projections (and therefore the penetration as a function of the total leaf area) is possible only with a large uncertainty (up to ±32%) because the projections are a specific measure of the total leaf area only if the leaf angle distribution is known. It is expected that this uncertainty could be reduced to more acceptable levels by making an approximate assessment of whether the zenith angle distribution is that of an extremophile canopy. An extremophile canopy would have the maximum leaf area possible for given set of projections. Simple leaf projection measurements would then become a practical substitute for detailed measurements of the leaf angle distribution. This is not true if for a fraction of the canopy, the leaf normal projections fall in the non-solar quadrant. In this case, accurate and detailed information about the leaf orientation is required for assessing the penetration; the horizontal and vertical projections are inadequate for this purpose.     

Climate variability and trends in downscaled high-resolution simulations and projections over Metropolitan France

In order to fulfill the society demand for climate information at the spatial scale allowing impact studies, long-term high-resolution climate simulations are produced, over an area covering metropolitan France. One of the major goals of this article is to investigate whether such simulations appropriately simulate the spatial and temporal variability of the current climate, using two simulation chains. These start from the global IPSL-CM4 climate model, using two regional models (LMDz and MM5) at moderate resolution (15–20 km), followed with a statistical downscaling method in order to reach a target resolution of 8 km. The statistical downscaling technique includes a non-parametric method that corrects the distribution by using high-resolution analyses over France. First the uncorrected simulations are evaluated against a set of high-resolution analyses, with a focus on temperature and precipitation. Uncorrected downscaled temperatures suffer from a cold bias that is present in the global model as well. Precipitations biases have a season- and model-dependent behavior. Dynamical models overestimate rainfall but with different patterns and amplitude, but both have underestimations in the South-Eastern area (Cevennes mountains) in winter. A variance decomposition shows that uncorrected simulations fairly well capture observed variances from inter-annual to high-frequency intra-seasonal time scales. After correction, distributions match with analyses by construction, but it is shown that spatial coherence, persistence properties of warm, cold and dry episodes also match to a certain extent. Another aim of the article is to describe the changes for future climate obtained using these simulations under Scenario A1B. Results are presented on the changes between current and mid-term future (2021–2050) averages and variability over France. Interestingly, even though the same global climate model is used at the boundaries, regional climate change responses from the two models significantly differ.     

Differential uplift on the boundary between the Eastern and the Southern European Alps: Thermochronologic constraints from the Brenner Base Tunnel

The Brenner Base Tunnel will connect Innsbruck (Austria) and Franzensfeste (Italy) by piercing two of the most important fault structures of the Alps: the Periadriatic fault system (PFS) and the Southern limit of Alpine metamorphism (SAM). (U‐Th)/He dating (apatite) and fission‐track analysis (apatite and zircon) on samples taken during excavation reveal a complex pattern of exhumation through time. The results yield temporal constraints for relative vertical block movement and fault activity. Furthermore, they indicate differential uplift of the northern block along the ~E–W striking PFS and allow locating the position of the SAM in the overtilted nappe stack south of the Tauern Window. Our data strongly support, for the first time, an ongoing north‐side‐up movement along this section of the PFS until at least the end of Miocene.