Spaceborne remote sensing of greenhouse gas concentrations

Despite their primary contribution to climate change, there are still large uncertainties on the sources and sinks of the main greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O). A better knowledge of these sources is necessary to understand the processes that control them and therefore to predict their variations. Indeed, large feedbacks between climate change and greenhouse gas fluxes are expected during the 21st century. Sources and sinks of these gases generate spatial and temporal gradients that can be measured either in situ or from space. One can then estimate the surface fluxes, either positive or negative, from concentration measurements through a so-called atmospheric inversion. Surface measurements are currently used to estimate the fluxes at continental scales. The high density of spaceborne observations allows potentially a much higher resolution. Several remote sensing techniques can be used to measure atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. These techniques have motivated the development of spaceborne instruments, some of them already in space and others under development. However, the accuracy of the current estimates is still not sufficient to improve our knowledge on the greenhouse gases sources and sinks. Rapid improvements are expected during the forthcoming years with a strong implication of the scientific community and the launch of dedicated instruments, optimized for the measurement of CO₂ and CH₄ concentrations.     

European temperature records of the past five centuries based on documentary/instrumental information compared to climate simulations

Two European temperature reconstructions for the past half-millennium, January-to-April air temperature for Stockholm (Sweden) and seasonal temperature for a Central European region, both derived from the analysis of documentary sources and long instrumental records, are compared with the output of climate simulations with the model ECHO-G. The analysis is complemented by comparisons with the long (early)-instrumental record of Central England Temperature (CET). Both approaches to study past climates (simulations and reconstructions) are burdened with uncertainties. The main objective of this comparative analysis is to identify robust features and weaknesses in each method which may help to improve models and reconstruction methods. The results indicate a general agreement between simulations obtained with temporally changing external forcings and the reconstructed Stockholm and CET records for the multi-centennial temperature trend over the recent centuries, which is not reproduced in a control simulation. This trend is likely due to the long-term change in external forcing. Additionally, the Stockholm reconstruction and the CET record also show a clear multi-decadal warm episode peaking around AD 1730, which is absent in the simulations. Neither the reconstruction uncertainties nor the model internal climate variability can easily explain this difference. Regarding the interannual variability, the Stockholm series displays, in some periods, higher amplitudes than the simulations but these differences are within the statistical uncertainty and further decrease if output from a regional model driven by the global model is used. The long-term trend of the CET series agrees less well with the simulations. The reconstructed temperature displays, for all seasons, a smaller difference between the present climate and past centuries than is seen in the simulations. Possible reasons for these differences may be related to a limitation of the traditional ‘indexing’ technique for converting documentary evidence to temperature values to capture long-term climate changes, because the documents often reflect temperatures relative to the contemporary authors’ own perception of what constituted ‘normal’ conditions. By contrast, the amplitude of the simulated and reconstructed inter-annual variability agrees rather well.     

“A sky of brass and burning winds”: documentary evidence of rainfall variability in the Kingdom of Lesotho, Southern Africa, 1824–1900

Forecasting austral summer rainfall in southern Africa is hampered by a lack of long-term instrumental data. This paper extends the historical record for the subcontinent by presenting the first extensive 19th century climate history for Lesotho derived from documentary evidence. The data sources included unpublished English-, French- and Sesotho-language materials archived in Lesotho, South Africa and the UK. These included letters, journals and reports written by missionaries and colonial authorities, which were supplemented by newspapers, diaries, travelogues and other historical sources. Each source was read in chronological order, with any climate information recorded verbatim. Observations were classified into five categories (Very Wet, Relatively Wet, ‘Normal’, Relatively Dry, and Very Dry) based upon the predominant documented climate during each ‘rain-year’ (July to June). The latter portion of the chronology was then compared for accuracy against available instrumental precipitation records from Maseru (1886–1900). The results yield a semi-continuous record of climate information from 1824 to 1900. Data are restricted to lowland areas, but reveal drought episodes in 1833–34, 1841–42, 1845–47, 1848–51, 1858–63, 1865–69, 1876–80, 1882–85 and 1895–99 (the most severe drought years being 1850–51 and 1862–63) and wet periods or floods in 1835–36, 1838–41, 1847–48, 1854–56, 1863–65, 1873–75, 1880–81, 1885–86 and 1890–94. The rainfall chronology is compared with similar records for South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Linkages to possible forcing mechanisms, including ENSO teleconnections and historical coral-derived southwest Indian Ocean sea surface temperature variations are also explored.     

Validation of climate-mode MM5-simulations for the European Alpine Region

Climate mode simulations using MM5 have been conducted over Western Europe on a 45-km grid driven by ECMWF’s ERA40 reanalysis data. We focus our validation on the Alpine region and the Alpine foreland. A reference experiment comprising the years of 1991 to 2000 shows reasonable correspondence to station measurements and a gridded precipitation climatology of the Alps. Also, the mean monthly diurnal cycle of near-surface temperature and dew point temperature verified in the Alpine foreland compares quite well to station data showing some minor discrepancies mainly in the afternoon that seem to be common to regional models. Furthermore, a set of sensitivity experiments was conducted for the years of 1996 to 1999. This set was spanned on the one hand by three convection schemes to get an estimate of the possible range of simulated precipitation amounts inherent to the MM5-system. On the other hand, two different formulations of the horizontal numerical diffusion were investigated with respect to their influence on simulated precipitation in mountainous terrain. It was found that the impact of the formulation of numerical diffusion is similarly large as the sensitivity to the convection scheme, with computing diffusion along the terrain-following coordinate surfaces being clearly worse than computing it in a truly horizontal manner.     

An ice-core based history of Siberian forest fires since AD 1250

Forest fires play a key role in the global carbon cycle and thus, can affect regional and global climate. Although fires in extended areas of Russian boreal forests have a considerable influence on atmospheric greenhouse gas and soot concentrations, estimates of their impact on climate are hampered by a lack of data on the history of forest fires. Especially regions with strong continental climate are of high importance due to an intensified development of wildfires. In this study we reconstruct the fire history of Southern Siberia during the past 750 years using ice-core based nitrate, potassium, and charcoal concentration records from Belukha glacier in the continental Siberian Altai. A period of exceptionally high forest-fire activity was observed between AD 1600 and 1680, following an extremely dry period AD 1540–1600. Ice-core pollen data suggest distinct forest diebacks and the expansion of steppe in response to dry climatic conditions. Coherence with a paleoenvironmental record from the 200 km distant Siberian lake Teletskoye shows that the vegetational shift AD 1540–1680, the increase in fire activity AD 1600–1680, and the subsequent recovery of forests AD 1700 were of regional significance. Dead biomass accumulation in response to drought and high temperatures around AD 1600 probably triggered maximum forest-fire activity AD 1600–1680. The extreme dry period in the 16th century was also observed at other sites in Central Asia and is possibly associated with a persistent positive mode of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). No significant increase in biomass burning occurred in the Altai region during the last 300 years, despite strongly increasing temperatures and human activities. Our results imply that precipitation changes controlled fire-regime and vegetation shifts in the Altai region during the past 750 years. We conclude that high sensitivity of ecosystems to occasional decadal-scale drought events may trigger unprecedented environmental reorganizations under global-warming conditions.     

Atlantic surface water inflow to the Nordic seas during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition (mid–late Younger Dryas and Pre‐Boreal periods, 12 450–10 000 a BP)

The inflow of Atlantic Water to the Nordic seas from mid–late Younger Dryas to earliest Holocene (12 450–10 000 a BP) is reconstructed on the basis of a high‐resolution core (LINK14) from 346 m water depth on the east Faroe shelf. We have analysed the distribution of planktic and benthic foraminifera, stable isotopes and ice‐rafted debris (IRD), and calculated absolute temperatures and salinities by transfer functions. During the investigated time period there was almost continuous inflow of Atlantic Water to the Nordic seas. Deposition of IRD during the mid–late Younger Dryas and Pre‐Boreal coolings indicates the presence of melting icebergs and that summer sea surface temperatures were low. The east–west temperature gradient across the Faroe–Shetland Channel was much steeper than today. The cold conditions around the Faroe Islands are attributed to stronger East Greenland and East Icelandic currents than at present. The near‐continuous inflow of Atlantic Water is consistent with published evidence suggesting that deep convection took place in the Nordic seas, although the convection sites probably had shifted to a more easterly position than at present. Around the time of deposition of the Saksunarvatn Tephra c. 10 350 a BP, sea surface temperatures increased to the present level. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison between real‐time dynamic substructuring and shake table testing techniques for nonlinear seismic applications

Results from real‐time dynamic substructuring (RTDS) tests are compared with results from shake table tests performed on a two‐storey steel building structure model. At each storey, the structural system consists of a cantilevered steel column resisting lateral loads in bending. In two tests, a slender diagonal tension‐only steel bracing member was added at the first floor to obtain an unsymmetrical system with highly variable stiffness. Only the first‐storey structural components were included in the RTDS test program and a Rosenbrock‐W linearly implicit integration scheme was adopted for the numerical solution. The tests were performed under seismic ground motions exhibiting various amplitude levels and frequency contents to develop first and second mode‐dominated responses as well as elastic and inelastic responses. A chirp signal was also used. Coherent results were obtained between the shake table and the RTDS testing techniques, indicating that RTDS testing methods can be used to successfully reproduce both the linear and nonlinear seismic responses of ductile structural steel seismic force resisting systems. The time delay introduced by actuator‐control systems was also studied and a novel adaptive compensation scheme is proposed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of pollution versus natural geological sources for lead enrichment in recent lake sediments and surface forest soils

This paper assesses the role of airborne pollution and natural geological sources for lead enrichment in lake sediments and in surface soils of boreal forests. This assessment is based on analyses of stable lead isotopes (²⁰⁶Pb and ²⁰⁷Pb) and lead concentrations in sediment cores (>30 lakes), ombrotrophic peat and soil samples in Sweden. The ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb ratio and concentration profiles in the sediment cores change synchronously over the last 3,000 years in different lakes, temporal concentration changes in sediments and peat deposits are very consistent, and these temporal concentration changes coincide well with the history of lead production in Europe. The ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb ratio is almost the same in all soil mor samples (1.152ǂ.009; n=94), and similar to values recorded in aerosols, despite very high and different ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb ratio of the mineral soil in the C-horizon (1.3-1.7). This study provides evidence that lead enrichment in recent sediments and peat, and in the mor layer are caused by deposition of pollution lead and not natural processes.     

The distribution of acetaldehyde in the lower troposphere during TROPOZ II

A series of 72 measurements of the acetaldehyde (CH₃CHO) mixing ratio were made in the lower troposphere during TROPOZ II. These measurements are the first ever made of the background level of this trace gas in the free troposphere. The data show a vertical decrease of the CH₃CHO mixing ratio with increasing altitude and indicate higher CH₃CHO concentrations in the Northern Hemisphere — in general agreement with a model-derived average CH₃CHO distribution. Deviations of the observed CH₃CHO mixing ratios from the modelled mean distribution are correlated with similar deviations in the corresponding HCHO mixing ratios.