Simulations of energy balance components at snow-dominated montane watershed by land surface models

The quantification of energy interactions among land surface, atmosphere, and surface vegetation is significant to comprehend the hydrological cycle in montane watersheds. Moreover, elevation change is an essential in causing variations in energy fluxes. Thus, estimating the major components of energy interactions is essential for better understanding of the hydrological process. The advanced land surface models (LSMs); the common land model (CLM) and variables infiltration capacity (VIC) are used to estimate accurate hydrometeorological variables. These hydrometeorological variables such as net radiation and sensible, latent, and ground heat fluxes were estimated using CLM and VIC at upper and lower meteorological stations in Sierra Nevada Mountain, California, USA. The estimated fluxes were compared with observations at each site. The estimated daily and monthly net radiation and sensible heat flux from both models showed good agreement with the observations (R ≥ 0.84). The CLM-modeled estimates showed lower trends during the rainfall periods, which occurred mainly during winter at both sites. In comparison, the estimated daily and monthly latent heat flux from CLM at both sites showed better results with lower RMSE and bias than that from VIC, which underestimated latent heat flux. Both models overestimated ground heat flux, and the variation trend was similar to observation. For sensitivity analysis, according to elevation change, all the estimated energy fluxes had slightly different values at the upper and lower met stations. In future studies, parameterization for the LSMs will be conducted for more robust estimations of hydrometeorological variables in montane watersheds.     

Effect of the North Atlantic Oscillation on the Thermal Characteristics of Lakes in Poland

This paper presents the effect of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on the thermal characteristics of lakes in Poland. In the analysis, the use was made of monthly air temperatures recorded at fifteen meteorological stations, water temperatures of twelve lakes, and Hurrell’s winter NAO indices. Over the study period (1971–2010), there was a marked increase in the temperatures of both, air and lake waters. Depending on the NAO phase, water temperatures were observed to depart from mean values, being markedly higher than average (even by 1°C) in the positive winter NAO phase. The differences in water temperatures were statistically significant in the winter-spring season. In turn, in the negative NAODJFM phase lake water temperatures in winter and spring were markedly lower than average (in March even by 1.0°C). The unique response of some lakes depends on their morphometric parameters, including their mean depth.     

Flow Characteristics of Microbubble Suspensions in Porous Media as an Oxygen Carrier

Microbubble suspensions were generated as an oxygen carrier for aerobic biodegradation, and their flow characteristics in porous media were investigated. Commercial surfactants including sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), and dodecylethyldimethylammonium bromide (DEDAB), saponin (a natural surfactant), and collagen (a protein hydrolysate) were examined as base materials for generating microbubble suspensions. Among them, 2×CMC (critical micellar concentration) of SDS, DEDAB, and saponin developed microbubble suspensions with the highest gas hold‐up and half‐drainage time. Visualization of the flow patterns in sand showed that the microbubble suspensions were separated into a liquid and gas phase directly after injection, showing much faster movement of liquid phase flow. The gas front of the microbubble suspensions flowed in a plug‐flow manner, particularly in cases of SDS and DEDAB. The experimental results from both homogeneous and heterogeneous cells confirmed that the microbubble flow could overcome the heterogeneity in porous media. However, the plug‐flow characteristics and flow propagation of the microbubble suspensions to the low‐permeability zone was accompanied by a large pressure drop, which needs to be considered for future field application.     

Slug test analysis to evaluate permeability of compressible materials

The line-fitting methods such as the Hvorslev method and the Bouwer and Rice method provide a rapid and simple means to analyze slug test data for estimating in situ hydraulic conductivity ( k ) of geologic materials. However, when analyzing a slug test in a relatively compressible geologic formation, these conventional methods may have difficulties fitting a straight line to the semilogarithmic plot of the test data. Data from relatively compressible geologic formations frequently show a concave-upward curvature because of the effect of the compressibility or specific storage ( S _s). To take into account the compressibility of geologic formations, a modified line-fitting method is introduced, which expands on Chirlin's (1989) approach to the case of a partially penetrating well with the basic-time-lag fitting method. A case study for a compressible till is made to verify the proposed method by comparing the results from the proposed methods with those obtained using a type-curve method (Kansas Geological Survey method [ Hyder et al. 1994 ]).     

Robust intensification of hydroclimatic intensity over East Asia from multi-model ensemble regional projections

This study assesses the hydroclimatic response to global warming over East Asia from multi-model ensemble regional projections. Four different regional climate models (RCMs), namely, WRF, HadGEM3-RA, RegCM4, and GRIMs, are used for dynamical downscaling of the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 2–Atmosphere and Ocean (HadGEM2-AO) global projections forced by the representative concentration pathway (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios. Annual mean precipitation, hydroclimatic intensity index (HY-INT), and wet and dry extreme indices are analyzed to identify the robust behavior of hydroclimatic change in response to enhanced emission scenarios using high-resolution (12.5 km) and long-term (1981–2100) daily precipitation. Ensemble projections exhibit increased hydroclimatic intensity across the entire domain and under both the RCP scenarios. However, a geographical pattern with predominantly intensified HY-INT does not fully emerge in the mean precipitation change because HY-INT is tied to the changes in the precipitation characteristics rather than to those in the precipitation amount. All projections show an enhancement of high intensity precipitation and a reduction of weak intensity precipitation, which lead to a possible shift in hydroclimatic regime prone to an increase of both wet and dry extremes. In general, projections forced by the RCP8.5 scenario tend to produce a much stronger response than do those by the RCP4.5 scenario. However, the temperature increase under the RCP4.5 scenario is sufficiently large to induce significant changes in hydroclimatic intensity, despite the relatively uncertain change in mean precipitation. Likewise, the forced responses of HY-INT and the two extreme indices are more robust than that of mean precipitation, in terms of the statistical significance and model agreement.

     

Possible influence of western North Pacific monsoon on TC activity in mid-latitudes of East Asia

The interannual variation of East Asia summer monsoon (EASM) rainfall exhibits considerable differences between early summer [May–June (MJ)] and peak summer [July–August (JA)]. The present study focuses on peak summer. During JA, the mean ridge line of the western Pacific subtropical High (WPSH) divides EASM domain into two sub-domains: the tropical EA (5°N–26.5°N) and subtropical-extratropical EA (26.5°N–50°N). Since the major variability patterns in the two sub-domains and their origins are substantially different, the Part I of this study concentrates on the tropical EA or Southeast Asia (SEA). We apply the predictable mode analysis approach to explore the predictability and prediction of the SEA peak summer rainfall. Four principal modes of interannual rainfall variability during 1979–2013 are identified by EOF analysis: (1) the WPSH-dipole sea surface temperature (SST) feedback mode in the Northern Indo-western Pacific warm pool associated with the decay of eastern Pacific El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), (2) the central Pacific-ENSO mode, (3) the Maritime continent SST-Australian High coupled mode, which is sustained by a positive feedback between anomalous Australian high and sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) over Indian Ocean, and (4) the ENSO developing mode. Based on understanding of the sources of the predictability for each mode, a set of physics-based empirical (P-E) models is established for prediction of the first four leading principal components (PCs). All predictors are selected from either persistent atmospheric lower boundary anomalies from March to June or the tendency from spring to early summer. We show that these four modes can be predicted reasonably well by the P-E models, thus they are identified as the predictable modes. Using the predicted PCs and the corresponding observed spatial patterns, we have made a 35-year cross-validated hindcast, setting up a bench mark for dynamic models’ predictions. The P-E hindcast prediction skill represented by domain-averaged temporal correlation coefficient is 0.44, which is twice higher than the skill of the current dynamical hindcast, suggesting that the dynamical models have large rooms to improve. The maximum potential attainable prediction skills for the peak summer SEA rainfall is also estimated and discussed by using the PMA. High predictability regions are found over several climatological rainfall centers like Indo-China peninsula, southern coast of China, southeastern SCS, and Philippine Sea.     

Effect of ENSO on landfalling tropical cyclones over the Korean peninsula

The effect of ENSO on landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) over the Korean Peninsula is examined. It is found that although the landfalling frequency does not show any statistically significant difference among ENSO phases, the landfalling tracks are shifted northward in response to the decrease in Niño-3.4 index. In the neutral ENSO phase, many TCs pass through mainland China before landfalling over the Korean Peninsula due to the westward expansion of the western North Pacific subtropical high. Therefore, the landfalling TC intensity over the Korean Peninsula in the neutral phase is similar to that in the La Niña phase because more than half of those TCs made landfall over mainland China. However, it is found that the preceding winter ENSO phases are not related to the landfalling TC activity over the Korean Peninsula during summer.     

Future changes in summer precipitation in regional climate simulations over the Korean Peninsula forced by multi-RCP scenarios of HadGEM2-AO

In this study, the regional climate of the Korean Peninsula (KP) was dynamically downscaled using a high-resolution regional climate model (RCM) forced by multi- representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenarios of HadGEM2-AO, and changes in summer precipitation were investigated. Through the evaluation of the present climate, the RCM reasonably reproduced long-term climatology of summer precipitation over the KP, and captured the sub-seasonal evolution of Changma rain-band. In future projections, all RCP experiments using different RCP radiative forcings (i.e., RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5 runs) simulated an increased summer precipitation over the KP. However, there were some differences in changing rates of summer precipitation among the RCP experiments. Future increases in summer precipitation were affected by future changes in moisture convergence and surface evaporation. Changing ranges in moisture convergences among RCP experiments were significantly larger than those in surface evaporation. This indicates that the uncertainty of changes in summer precipitation is related to the projection of the monsoon circulation, which determines the moisture convergence field through horizontal advection. Changes in the sub-seasonal evolution of Changma rain-band were inconsistent among RCP experiments. However, all experiments showed that Changma rain-band was enhanced during late June to early July, but it was weakened after mid-July due to the expansion of the western North Pacific subtropical high. These results indicate that precipitation intensity related to Changma rain-band will be increased, but its duration will be reduced in the future.