Impact of swell on simulations using a regional atmospheric climate model

When long, fast swell waves travel in approximately the same direction as the wind, the surface stress is reduced compared with under wind-sea conditions. Using measurements from the Östergarnsholm site in the Baltic Sea, new expressions of the roughness length were developed for wind sea and swell. These new expressions were implemented in the RCA3 regional climate model covering Europe. A 3-year simulation and two case studies using the wavefield from the ECMWF reanalysis (ERA-40) were analysed using the improved formulations. Wind-following swell led to a significant reduction of mean wind stress and heat fluxes. The mean surface layer wind speed was redistributed horizontally and the marine boundary layer cooled and dried slightly. This cooling was most pronounced over North Sea and the Norwegian Sea (almost 0.2 °C annually on average) whereas the drying was most pronounced over the Mediterranean Sea (almost 0.4 g kg⁻¹). Somewhat less convective precipitation and low-level cloudiness over the sea areas were also indicated, in particular over the Mediterranean Sea. The impact on the atmosphere, however, is significantly locally greater in time and space.     

Are response function representations of the global carbon cycle ever interpretable?

Response function models are often used to represent the behaviour of complex, high order global carbon cycle (GCC) and climate models in applications which require short model run times. Although apparently black-box, these response function models need not necessarily be entirely opaque, but instead may also convey useful insights into the properties of the parent model or process. By exploiting a transfer function (TF) framework to analyse the Lenton GCC model, this paper attempts to demonstrate that response function representations of GCC models can sometimes also provide structural information on the parent model from which they are identified and calibrated. We take a fifth-order TF identified from the impulse response of the Lenton model atmospheric burden, and decompose this to show how it can be re-expresses in a generic five-box form in sympathy with the structure of the parent model.     

Wind sensitivity of the inter-ocean heat exchange

An idealised two-basin model is used to investigate the impact of the wind field on the heat exchange between the ocean basins. The scalar potential of the divergent component of the horizontal heat flux is computed, which gives a 'coarse-grained' image of the surface heat flux that captures the large-scale structure of the horizontal heat transport. Further the non-divergent component is examined, as well as the meridional heat transport and the temperature–latitude overturning stream function. A sensitivity analysis examines the heat transport response to changes in wind stress at different latitudes. The results are compared with results from an eddy-permitting global circulation model. The westerly wind stress over the Southern Ocean has two effects: a local reduction of the surface heat loss in response to the equatorward surface Ekman drift, and a global re-routing of the heat export from the Indo-Pacific. Without wind forcing, the Indo-Pacific heat export is released to the atmosphere in the Southern Ocean, and the net heat transport in the southern Atlantic is southward. With wind forcing, the Indo-Pacific export enters the Atlantic through the Aghulas and is released in the Northern Hemisphere. The easterlies enhance the poleward heat transport in both basins.     

Leakage and spillover effects of forest management on carbon storage: theoretical insights from a simple model

Leakage (spillover) refers to the unintended negative (positive) consequences of forest carbon (C) management in one area on C storage elsewhere. For example, the local C storage benefit of less intensive harvesting in one area may be offset, partly or completely, by intensified harvesting elsewhere in order to meet global timber demand. We present the results of a theoretical study aimed at identifying the key factors determining leakage and spillover, as a prerequisite for more realistic numerical studies. We use a simple model of C storage in managed forest ecosystems and their wood products to derive approximate analytical expressions for the leakage induced by decreasing the harvesting frequency of existing forest, and the spillover induced by establishing new plantations, assuming a fixed total wood production from local and remote (non-local) forests combined. We find that leakage and spillover depend crucially on the growth rates, wood product lifetimes and woody litter decomposition rates of local and remote forests. In particular, our results reveal critical thresholds for leakage and spillover, beyond which effects of forest management on remote C storage exceed local effects. Order of magnitude estimates of leakage indicate its potential importance at global scales.     

Interannual variability of NDVI and bird species diversity in Kenya

Species richness, or simply the number of species in a given area, is commonly used as an important indicator of biological diversity. Spatial variability in species richness has been postulated to depend upon environmental factors such as climate and climatic variability, which in turn may affect net primary productivity. The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been shown to be correlated with climatic variables including rainfall, actual evapotranspiration and net primary productivity. To determine factors favoring high species richness, we examined the relationship between interannual NDVI variables and species richness of birds at a quarter degree scale (55 × 55 km). Results revealed a strong positive correlation between species richness and maximum average NDVI. Conversely, species richness showed negative correlation with standard deviation of maximum NDVI and the coefficient of variation. Though these relationships are indirect, they apparently operate through the green vegetation cover. Understanding such relationships can help in mapping and monitoring biological diversity, as well as in estimating changes in species richness in response to global climatic change.     

The Role of Laser Ranging for Calibrating Jason-1: The Corsica Tracking Campaign

The French Transportable Laser Ranging System (FTLRS), a highly transportable Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) instrument, was set up in Corsica (from January to September 2002) for participating to the JASON-1 altimeter verification phase. In addition to the tracking of oceanographic satellite missions and in order to perform an accurate positioning, the FTLRS also acquired laser ranging data on geodetic satellites, STARLETTE and STELLA essentially.

The paper describes the analysis strategy mainly based on the use of a short-arc orbit technique to compute accurate 1 cm local orbits, and then the geocentric positioning (2–3 mm relative to GPS). Finally, we established the JASON-1 absolute calibration value, based on 9 SLR short-arcs (between cycles 1 and 26), at 108.2 ± 8.7 mm; the 10-day repeatability is of 26.1 mm showing that a great accuracy has been reached.     

TOPICS ON SEISMIC RESEARCH AT THE MONACO OCEANOGRAPHIC MUSEUM *

The author comments the techniques and methods used in continuous seismic profiling by the Monaco Oceanographic Museum during the last five years. Pinger probe give informations on the Mud layering and thickness. On the shelf or in abyssal plains, boomer and sparker are employed and allow to rise various geological conclusions. South coast of France, continental shelf in the Gulf of Lion, abyssal plain of the Ligurian Sea and Lake of Geneva are the areas concerned to with the results.     

Assimilation of image sequences in numerical models

Understanding and forecasting the evolution of geophysical fluids is a major scientific and societal challenge. Forecasting algorithms should take into account all the available information on the considered dynamic system. The variational data assimilation (VDA) technique combines all these informations in an optimality system (O.S.) in a consistent way to reconstruct the model inputs. VDA is currently used by the major meteorological centres. During the last two decades about 30 satellites were launched to improve the knowledge of the atmosphere and of the oceans. They continuously provide a huge amount of data that are still underused by numerical forecast systems. In particular, the dynamic evolution of certain meteorological or oceanic features (such as eddies, fronts, etc.) that the human vision may easily detect is not optimally taken into account in realistic applications of VDA. Image Assimilation in VDA framework can be performed using 'pseudo-observation' techniques: they provide apparent velocity fields, which are assimilated as classical observations. These measurements are obtained by certain external procedures, which are decoupled with the considered dynamic system. In this paper, we suggest a more consistent approach, which directly incorporates image sequences into the O.S.