GNSS remote sensing of the Australian tropopause

Radio occultation (RO) techniques that use signals transmitted by Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have emerged over the past decade as an important tool for measuring global changes in tropopause temperature and height, a valuable capacity given the tropopause??s sensitivity to temperature variations. This study uses 45,091 RO data from the CHAMP (CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload, 80 months), GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment, 23 months) and COSMIC (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate, 20 months) satellites to analyse the variability of the tropopause??s height and temperature over Australia. GNSS RO temperature profiles from CHAMP, GRACE, and COSMIC are first validated using radiosonde observations provided by the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia). These are compared to RO soundings from between 2001 and 2007 that occurred within 3 h and 100 km of a radiosonde. The results indicate that RO soundings provide data of a comparable quality to radiosonde observations in the tropopause region, with temperature deviations of less than 0.5 ± 1.5 K. An analysis of tropopause height and temperature anomalies indicates a height increase over Australia as a whole of ca. 4.8 ± 1.3 m between September 2001 and April 2008, with a corresponding temperature decrease of ?0.019 ± 0.007 K. A similar pattern of increasing height/decreasing temperature was generally observed when determining the spatial distribution of the tropopause height and temperature rate of change over Australia. Although only a short period has been considered in this study, a function of the operating time of these satellites, the results nonetheless show an increase in the height of the tropopause over Australia during this period and thus may indicate regional warming. Several mechanisms could be responsible for these changes, such as an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and lower stratospheric cooling due to ozone loss, both of which have been observed during the last decades.     

Tracer experiments with turbulently dispersed air ions

Unipolar air ions released into the wind constitute a tracer which can be measured with high resolution. An ion source produces a cloud with homogeneous charge density, insensitive to source strength, dependent on time since formation only. It is well suited for tracing concentration changes due to turbulence, less suited for cloud size tracing. A tight array of 8 sensors has been used to examine turbulently dispersed ions. High-resolution records are presented and discussed. The highest concentrations measured could be undiluted source material. The frequency distribution within a plume did not differ from that in a multitude of puffs. The distribution seems to be log-normal with a geometric standard deviation of about 2.45. The time resolution used corresponds to volume resolutions of 40, 225, and 650 cm³. Sample size had no apparent effect.     

奇异谱分析方法在夏季降雨预测中的应用

运用奇异谱分析方法对石家庄市83年降水进行了统计分析，结果表明：石家庄市近百年夏季降水的趋势变化不太显著，主要以波动变化为主，主振荡周期分别为5－6年、10年左右及30－40年左右的长周期变化，各重建分量振幅、位相具有明显的年代际变化。利用重建分量进行降水趋势预测，1998－2001年试报表明，效果较好。     

2008年1月18-22日河南区域暴雪诊断分析

利用常规高空地面资料和NCEP 6 h一次1°×1°再分析资料.对2008年1月18-22日河南省出现的大范围暴雪天气过程进行了分析,结果表明:高空低槽、低空切变与地面经华北扩散南下的冷空气相互配合是此次暴雪的主要成因;700 hPa低空西南急流为暴雪天气的产生提供了充沛的水汽和能量供应;中低层"天南地北"的流场配置加大垂直切变,有利于上升运动的加强,致使降雪强度加大;低空辐合、中高空辐散产生的强烈上升运动,是出现暴雪的有利动力条件;暴雪落区与湿位涡的斜压项MPV2负值带有很好的对应关系.     

Yangtze Delta floods and droughts of the last millennium: Abrupt changes and long term memory

Summary Climate variability and flood events in the Yangtze Delta, which is a low-lying terrain prone to flood hazards, storm tides and typhoons, are studied in terms of a trend and detrended fluctuation analysis of historical records. The data used in this paper were extracted from historical records such as local annuals and chronologies from 1000–1950 and supplemented by instrumental observations since 1950. The historical data includes frequencies of floods, droughts and maritime events on a decadal basis. Flood magnitudes increase during the transition from the medieval warm interval into the early Little Ice Age. Fluctuating climate changes of the Little Ice Age, which are characterised by arid climate events, are followed by wet and cold climate conditions with frequent flood hazards. For trend analysis, the Mann-Kendall test is applied to determine the changing trends of flood and drought frequency. Flood frequency during 1000–1950 shows a negative trend before 1600 A.D. and a positive trend thereafter; drought frequency increases after 1300. The detrended fluctuation analysis of the flood and drought frequencies reveals power law scaling up to centuries; this is related to long-term memory and is similar to the river Nile floods.     

Investigation about the dependence of spectral diffuse-to-direct-beam irradiance ratio on atmospheric turbidity and solar zenith angle

Summary The modifications of the solar spectral diffuse and direct-beam irradiances as well as the diffuse-to-direct-beam ratio, E_dλ/E_bλ, as a function of the aerosol optical depth, AOD, and solar zenith angle, SZA, is investigated. The E_dλ/E_bλ ratios decrease rapidly with wavelength and exponential curves in the form E_dλ/E_bλ = aλ^−b can be fitted with a great accuracy. These curves are strongly modified by the solar spectrum distribution, which is affected by the aerosol loading, aerosol optical properties and SZA. The spectral dependence of the above E_dλ/E_bλ ratios in logarithmic coordinates does not yield a straight line, while a significant departure from the linearity is revealed. The reasons for this departure are investigated in detail and it is established that the aerosol physical properties such as single scattering albedo and size distribution along with the effect of SZA are responsible. These parameters strongly affect the scattering processes in the atmosphere and as a consequence the diffuse spectral distribution. The E_dλ/E_bλ ratio, which is an indicator of the atmospheric transmittance (King, 1979), exhibits a strong wavelength and aerosol-loading dependence. The observed differences between turbid and clear atmospheres constitute a manifestation of contrasting air properties and influence solar irradiance spectra. The present work aims at investigating the effect of atmospheric turbidity and SZA on the E_dλ/E_bλ ratio. For this reason, two distinct cases are examined: one having different atmospheric turbidity conditions but same SZA and a second having different SZAs and same atmospheric turbidity levels.     

灾害性天气监测预警平台设计与开发

为解决基层气象台站现代天气业务中灾害性天气监测、识别报警、天气联防、上下级业务指导与信息反馈、产品共享、集约化业务管理等关键业务问题,基于B/S架构,采用Web、GIS、数据库等技术,研究、设计开发了省市县三级灾害性天气监测预警平台,与已有的MICAPS等系统形成互补,实现了山东天气业务、重大天气过程服务及重大活动、突发事件气象保障等为一体的业务化平台支持,不仅较好地满足了省、市、县三级气象部门现代天气业务发展对业务平台建设的迫切需求,也为优化省内集约化业务流程提供了支撑平台。     

正压准共振三波能量和拟能的传输

从准地转正压涡度方程出发，在ｋ１＋ｋ２＋ｋ３＝△ｋ、ｌ１＋ｌ２＋ｌ３＝０和ω１＋ω２＋ω３＝０的准共振条件下，分析了准共振三波能量和位涡拟能的传输。当△ｋ很小时，准共振三波组的总能量和总拟能近似守恒；三波之间能量和拟能的传输方向与共振情况基本相同，但中波向长波传输较多能量、向短波传输较多拟能和三波之间产生能量与拟能传输这三者的可能非线性准共振的面积与共振时相比均有较大的变化，而三者的面积比也有较明     

Sensitivity of hurricane intensity forecasts to physical initialization

Summary Intensity forecasts of a hurricane are shown to be quite sensitive to the initial meso-convective scale precipitation distributions. These are included within the data assimilation using a physical initialization that was developed at Florida State University. We show a case study of a hurricane forecast where the inclusion of the observed precipitation did provide reasonable intensity forecasts. Further experimentation with the inclusion or exclusion of individual meso-convective rainfall elements, around and over the storm, shows that the intensity forecasts were quite sensitive to these initial rainfall distributions. The exclusion of initial rain in the inner rain area of a hurricane leads to a much reduced intensity forecast, whereas that impact is less if the rainfall of an outer rain band was initially excluded.Intensity forecasts of hurricanes may be sensitive to a number of factors such as sea surface temperature anomalies, presence or absence of concentric eye walls, potential vorticity interactions in the upper troposphere and other environmental factors.This paper is a sequel to a recent study, Krishnamurti et al., 1997, on the prediction of hurricane OPAL of 1995 that was a category III storm over the Gulf of Mexico. In that study we showed successful forecasts of the storm intensity from the inclusion of observed rainfall distributions within physical initialization. In that paper we examined the issues of diabatic potential vorticity and the angular momentum in order to diagnose the storm intensity. All of the terms of the complete Ertel potential vorticity equation were evaluated and it was concluded that the diabatic contributions to the potential vorticity were quite important for the diagnosis of the storm's intensity. The present paper addresses some sensitivity issues related to the individual mesoconvective precipitating elements.With 4 Figures     

Is There a Link between Arctic Sea Ice Loss and Increasing Frequency of Extremely Cold Winters in Eurasia and North America? Synthesis of Current Research

Studies dealing with impact of the Arctic warming and related sea ice decline on the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation are considered. The causes of occurrence of extremely cold winters over the mid-latitude continents observed in the recent decades against the warming background are discussed. Several conceptions are outlined which explain potential reasons for occurrence of this phenomenon. The paper discusses impacts of the Arctic sea ice loss on the large-scale atmospheric circulation, oscillations of planetary waves. It also discusses issues related to sea ice changes in the Barents and Kara seas and their link to the frequency of extremely cold winters observed in Eurasia and North America, the contribution of internal atmospheric variability to the increasing frequency of cold weather, and the role of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in the Arctic sea ice reduction.