Variations in the Duration of the Navigation Period along the Northern Sea Route in the 21st Century Based on Simulations with an Ensemble of Climatic Models: Bayesian Estimates

As global warming continues in the 21st century, one can expect a significant increase in the duration of the navigation period along the Northern Sea Route. In this study we found that, according to the representative concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios of the anthropogenic impact, the expected duration of the navigation period along the Northern Sea Route in the middle of the 21st century would be two to three months and three to six months by the end of the century.     

CLIMBER-2: a climate system model of intermediate complexity. Part I: model description and performance for present climate

A 2.5-dimensional climate system model of intermediate complexity CLIMBER-2 and its performance for present climate conditions are presented. The model consists of modules describing atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, land surface processes, terrestrial vegetation cover, and global carbon cycle. The modules interact through the fluxes of momentum, energy, water and carbon. The model has a coarse spatial resolution, nevertheless capturing the major features of the Earth's geography. The model describes temporal variability of the system on seasonal and longer time scales. Due to the fact that the model does not employ flux adjustments and has a fast turnaround time, it can be used to study climates significantly different from the present one and to perform long-term (multimillennia) simulations. The comparison of the model results with present climate data show that the model successfully describes the seasonal variability of a large set of characteristics of the climate system, including radiative balance, temperature, precipitation, ocean circulation and cryosphere. Received: 12 January 1998 / Accepted: 2 July 1999     

Interaction of the methane cycle and processes in wetland ecosystems in a climate model of intermediate complexity

The climate model of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS CM) has been supplemented with a module of soil thermal physics and the methane cycle, which takes into account the response of methane emissions from wetland ecosystems to climate changes. Methane emissions are allowed only from unfrozen top layers of the soil, with an additional constraint in the depth of the simulated layer. All wetland ecosystems are assumed to be water-saturated. The molar amount of the methane oxidized in the atmosphere is added to the simulated atmospheric concentration of CO₂. A control preindustrial experiment and a series of numerical experiments for the 17th–21st centuries were conducted with the model forced by greenhouse gases and tropospheric sulfate aerosols. It is shown that the IAP RAS CM generally reproduces preindustrial and current characteristics of both seasonal thawing/freezing of the soil and the methane cycle. During global warming in the 21st century, the permafrost area is reduced by four million square kilometers. By the end of the 21st century, methane emissions from wetland ecosystems amount to 130–140 Mt CH₄/year for the preindustrial and current period increase to 170–200 MtCH₄/year. In the aggressive anthropogenic forcing scenario A2, the atmospheric methane concentration grows steadily to ≈3900 ppb. In more moderate scenarios A1B and B1, the methane concentration increases until the mid-21st century, reaching ≈2100–2400 ppb, and then decreases. Methane oxidation in air results in a slight additional growth of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. Allowance for the interaction between processes in wetland ecosystems and the methane cycle in the IAP RAS CM leads to an additional atmospheric methane increase of 10–20% depending on the anthropogenic forcing scenario and the time. The causes of this additional increase are the temperature dependence of integral methane production and the longer duration of a warm period in the soil. However, the resulting enhancement of the instantaneous greenhouse radiative forcing of atmospheric methane and an increase in the mean surface air temperature are small (globally < 0.1 W/m² and 0.05 K, respectively).     

Influence of volcanic activity on climate change in the past several centuries: Assessments with a climate model of intermediate complexity

The climate model of intermediate complexity developed at the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS CM) is supplemented by a scheme which takes into account the volcanic forcing of climate. With this model, ensemble experiments have been conducted for the 1600s–1900s, in which, along with the volcanic forcing, the anthropogenic forcing due to greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols and the natural forcing due to variations in solar irradiance were taken into account. The model realistically reproduces the annual mean response of surface air temperature and precipitation to major eruptions both globally and regionally. In particular, the decreases in the annual mean global temperature T _g in the IAP RAS CM after the largest eruptions in the latter half of the 20th century, the Mt. Agung (1963), El Chichon (1982), and Mt. Pinatubo (1991) volcanic eruptions, are 0.28, 0.27, and 0.46 K, respectively, in agreement with estimates from observational data. Moreover, in the IAP RAS CM, the volcanic eruptions result in a general precipitation decrease, especially over land in the middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The seasonal distribution of the response shows good agreement with observations for high-latitude eruptions and worse agreement for tropical and subtropical volcanoes. On interdecadal scales, volcanism leads to variations in T _g on the order of 0.1 K. In numerical experiments with anthropogenic and natural forcings, the model reproduces a general change in surface air temperature over the past several centuries. Taking into account the volcanic forcing, along with that due to variations in solar irradiance, the model has partly reproduced the nonmonotonic global warming for the 20th century.     

Simulation of characteristics of thermal and hydrologic soil regimes in equilibrium numerical experiments with a climate model of intermediate complexity

The IAP RAS CM (Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, climate model) has been extended to include a comprehensive scheme of thermal and hydrologic soil processes. In equilibrium numerical experiments with specified preindustrial and current concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the coupled model successfully reproduces thermal characteristics of soil, including the temperature of its surface, and seasonal thawing and freezing characteristics. On the whole, the model also reproduces soil hydrology, including the winter snow water equivalent and river runoff from large watersheds. Evapotranspiration from the soil surface and soil moisture are simulated somewhat worse. The equilibrium response of the model to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide shows a considerable warming of the soil surface, a reduction in the extent of permanently frozen soils, and the general growth of evaporation from continents. River runoff increases at high latitudes and decreases in the subtropics. The results are in qualitative agreement with observational data for the 20th century and with climate model simulations for the 21st century.     

Impact of global warming rate on permafrost degradation

The IAP RAS climate model of intermediate complexity is used to analyze the sensitivity of the area of continuous potential permafrost S _cont to the rate of global temperature variation T _gl in experiments with greenhouse-gas increases in the atmosphere. The influence of the internal variability of the model on the results is reduced by conducting ensemble runs with different initial conditions and analysis of the ensemble means. Idealized experiments with a linear or exponential dependence of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have revealed an increase in the magnitude of the temperature-sensitivity parameter of the area of continuous potential permafrost, k _cont (= S _{cont, 0} ^t-1 dS _cont/dT _gl, where S _{cont, 0} is the present value of S _cont). With a decrease in the linear trend coefficient of T _gl from about 3 to about 2 K/100 yr, this parameter varies from approximately ?0.2 to ?0.4 K^?1. With an even slower change in global temperature, k _cont virtually does not vary and remains close to the value obtained from paleoreconstructions of the past warm epochs. Such a dependence of k _cont on the rate of global warming is related mainly to the fact that the more rapid increase in T _gl leads to a slower response over high-latitude land. The contribution from changes in the annual temperature cycle, though comparable in the order of magnitude, is about one-third as large as the contribution from the variation of the latitudinal structure of the response of annual mean temperature. The total reduction in the annual cycle of temperature during warming partly compensates for the effect of the annual mean temperature rise, thus decreasing the magnitude of k _cont. In numerical experiments with greenhouse gas changes in accordance with SRES scenarios A2 and B2 and scenario IS92a, there is also a monotonic increase in the magnitude of the normalized parameter of temperature sensitivity of the area of continuous permafrost with a decrease in the growth rate of global temperature. For scenarios A2-CO2, IS92a-GHG, IS92a-CO2, B2-GHG, and B2-CO2, its value is almost indistinguishable from the steady-state asymptotic value of ?0.4 K^?1. For A2-GHG, the magnitude of k _cont turns out to be far less (k _cont ≈ ?0.3 K^?1).     

Relationship Between the H5 Chondrite Composition,Structure and Mechanical Properties from the Example of NWA 12370 and Pultusk

Solar System Research - The peculiarities of the composition and internal structure of chondrite NWA 12370, petrological type H5 S1 W1, were studied by means of Raman spectroscopy, XRF, and...     

Estimating the efficiency of mitigating and preventing global warming with scenarios of controlled aerosol emissions into the stratosphere

Ensemble numerical experiments with the climate model of intermediate complexity developed at the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS CM) are conducted to estimate the efficiency of controlled climate forcing (geoengineering) due to stratospheric sulfate aerosol (SSA) emissions in order to compensate for global warming under the SRES A1B anthropogenic emission scenario. Full (or even excessive) compensation for the expected anthropogenic warming in the model is possible with sufficiently intense geoengineering. For ensemble members with values of the governing parameters corresponding to those obtained for the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, global warming is reduced by no more than 0.46 K in the second half of the 21st century, with a residual rise in the global surface temperature T _g comparative to 1961–1990 of 1.0–1.2 K by 2050 and 1.9–2.2 K by 2100. The largest reduction in global warming (with the other parameters of the numerical experiment being equal) is found not for a meridional distribution of SSA concentration peaked at low latitudes (despite the largest (in magnitude) global compensation instantaneous radiative forcing), but for a uniform horizontal aerosol distribution and for a distribution with the SSA concentration maximum in the middle and subpolar latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The efficiency of geoengineering in terms of T _g in the second half of the 21st century between the most efficient and the least efficient meridional distributions of stratospheric aerosols differs by as much as one-third, depending on the values of other governing parameters. For meridional distributions of SSA concentration, which produce the largest deceleration of global warming, such a deceleration is regionally most pronounced over high- and subpolarlatitude land areas and in the Arctic. In particular, this is expressed in the smallest reduction in the sea-ice extent and permafrost area under climate warming in the model. The compensation forcing also decelerates a general increase in global annual precipitation P _g during warming. The relative deceleration in precipitation increase is most pronounced in land regions outside the tropics, where a significant deficit in precipitation is currently observed. After the theoretical completion of geoengineering in the first or second decade, its temperature effect vanishes with an abrupt acceleration of global and regional surface warming. For individual members of the ensemble experiment, the global temperature change in this period is five times as large as that in the experiment without geoengineering and ten times as large regionally (in northeastern Siberia).