Numerical investigation of an oceanic resonant regime induced by hurricane winds

The oceanic mixed layer (OML) response to an idealized hurricane with different propagation speeds is investigated using a two-layer reduced gravity ocean model. First, the model performances are examined with respect to available observations relative to Hurricane Frances (2004). Then, 11 idealized simulations are performed with a Holland (Mon Weather Rev 108(8):1212–1218, 1980) symmetric wind profile as surface forcing with storm propagation speeds ranging from 2 to 12 m s⁻¹. By varying this parameter, the phasing between atmospheric and oceanic scales is modified. Consequently, it leads to different momentum exchanges between the hurricane and the OML and to various oceanic responses. The present study determines how OML momentum and heat budgets depend on this parameter. The kinetic energy flux due to surface wind stress is found to strongly depend on the propagation speed and on the cross-track distance from the hurricane center. A resonant regime between surface winds and near-inertial currents is clearly identified. This regime maximizes locally the energy flux into the OML. For fast-moving hurricanes (>6 m s⁻¹), the ratio of kinetic energy converted into turbulence depends only on the wind stress energy input. For slow-moving hurricanes (<6 m s⁻¹), the upwelling induced by current divergence enhances this conversion by shallowing the OML depth. Regarding the thermodynamic response, two regimes are identified with respect to the propagation speed. For slow-moving hurricanes, the upwelling combined with a sharp temperature gradient at the OML base formed in the leading part of the storm maximizes the oceanic heat loss. For fast propagation speeds, the resonance mechanism sets up the cold wake on the right side of the hurricane track. These results suggest that the propagation speed is a parameter as important as the surface wind speed to accurately describe the oceanic response to a moving hurricane.     

Orogen‐scale drainage network evolution and response to erodibility changes: insights from numerical experiments

The continuous feedbacks among tectonics, surface processes, and climate are reflected in the distribution of catchments on active mountain ranges. Previous studies have shown a regularity of valley spacing across mountain ranges worldwide, but the origin of this geomorphological feature is currently not well known. In this work, we use a landscape evolution model to investigate the process of fluvial network organization and the evolution of regular ridge‐and‐valley patterns on simulated mountain ranges. In particular, we investigate the behavior of such patterns when subjected to a perturbation in landscape processes from a previous steady state, resulting from a sudden variation in the pattern of bedrock erodibility, from homogeneous to a gradient. We analyze the time evolution of the mean ratio λ' between the linear spacing of adjacent valleys and the half width of the mountain range. We show how a valley spacing ratio of ~0.5 is first achieved at steady state under uniform bedrock erodibility. After applying the gradient of bedrock erodibility across the landscape, we observe that λ' first increases and then decreases to a new steady‐state value that is smaller than the original value. A detailed analysis of the simulations, through observations of surface ‘snapshots’ at repeated time intervals, allows to gain some insight into the mechanisms governing this fluvial network reorganization process, driven by the migration of the main divide toward the side characterized by lower bedrock erodibility. On both sides of the range the new steady‐state valley spacing is obtained through mechanisms of catchment reorganization and competition between adjacent fluvial networks. In particular, catchment reorganization is characterized by the growth of smaller catchments between shrinking larger catchments on the side with lower erodibility, and the growth of larger catchments on the side with higher erodibility. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Observations of the Temperature and Humidity Structure Parameter Over Heterogeneous Terrain by Airborne Measurements During the LITFASS-2003 Campaign

We used numerical simulations to investigate the general relationship between urban morphology and the intensity of wind gusts in built-up areas at the pedestrian level. The simulated urban boundary layer developed over a 19.2 km (length) \(\times \) 4.8 km (width) \(\times \) 1.0 km (height) simulation domain, with 2-m resolution in all directions, to explicitly resolve the detailed shapes of buildings and the flow at the pedestrian level. This complex computation was accomplished using the lattice Boltzmann method and by implementing a large-eddy simulation model. To generalize the results, a new parameter that expresses the intensity of gusts (the gust index, \({\tilde{U}}_{ max})\) was defined as the local maximum wind speed divided by the freestream velocity. In addition, this parameter was decomposed into the mean wind-speed ratio, \({\tilde{U}} \) and turbulent gust ratio, \({\tilde{U}}^{{\prime }}\) to evaluate the qualities of gusts. These parameters were useful for quantitatively comparing the gust intensities within urban canopies at different locations or even among different experiments. In addition, the entire horizontal domain was subdivided into homogeneous square patches, in which both the simulated gust parameters and the morphological characteristics of building geometries were averaged. This procedure masked the detailed structure of individual buildings but retained the bulk characteristics of the urban morphology. At the pedestrian level, the gust index decreased with increasing building cover. Compared to \({\tilde{U}} \), the quantity \({\tilde{U}}^{{\prime }}\) notably contributed to the index throughout the range of plan area index \((\lambda _p)\) values. The dependences of all normalized wind-speed ratios transiently changed at \(\lambda _p =~0.28\). In cases where \(\lambda _p < 0.28, {\tilde{U}} \) decreased with increasing \(\lambda _p \), although \({\tilde{U}}^{{\prime }}\) was almost constant. In cases where \(\lambda _p > 0.28, {\tilde{U}}\) was almost constant and \({\tilde{U}}^{{\prime }}\) decreased with increasing \(\lambda _p \). This was explained by the change in flow regimes within the building canyon. At a higher elevation above the canopy layer, \(\lambda _p \) becomes less relevant to normalized wind-speed ratios, and instead the aerodynamic roughness length became important.     

Short communication: another reason to care about physician health: its role in climate change

There is an important connection between physician well-being, insufficient preventive care for patients, and global warming. Doctors?? good health is linked to patients?? preventive care, because physicians with healthy personal habits are more likely to encourage our patients to adopt such habits. If doctors eat less meat, consume fewer resources and pollute less, we could help our patients do so, too. Our actions help our patients make better choices, and to help heal and strengthen ourselves, our patients, and our planet.     

Potential climate change effects on warm-season livestock production in the Great Plains

Projected production responses were derived for confined swine and beef and for milk-producing dairy cattle based on climate change projections in daily ambient temperature. Milk production from dairy cattle and the number of days to grow swine and beef cattle were simulated. Values were obtained for three central United States transects and three climate scenarios which were based on projected mean daily ambient temperatures associated with a baseline, doubling, and tripling of atmospheric greenhouse gas (CO₂) levels for the period June 1 to October 31. For swine, a slight northwest to southeast gradient is evident. Transect 1 (west side) shows no losses under the doubling scenario and losses up to 22.4% under the tripling scenario. Transect 3 (east side) displays losses of over 70% under the tripling scenario. For beef, positive benefits were simulated in Transect 1 with increasing temperatures, although a northwest to southeast gradient was also evident. For dairy, no positive benefits in milk production were found due to climate effects. Projected production declines ranged from 1% to 7.2%, depending on location. However, ranges in predicted differences were less than those simulated for beef and swine. These simulations suggest regional differences in animal production due to climate change will be apparent. For small changes in climate conditions, animals will likely be able to adapt, while larger changes in climate conditions will likely dictate that management strategies be implemented. Exploration of the effects of climate changes on livestock should allow producers to adjust management strategies to reduce potential impact and economic losses due to environmental changes.     

Estimating the Impact of Global Change on Flood and Drought Risks in Europe: A Continental, Integrated Analysis

Most studies on the impact of climate change on regional water resources focus on long-term average flows or mean water availability, and they rarely take the effects of altered human water use into account. When analyzing extreme events such as floods and droughts, the assessments are typically confined to smaller areas and case studies. At the same time it is acknowledged that climate change may severely alter the risk of hydrological extremes over large regional scales, and that human water use will put additional pressure on future water resources. In an attempt to bridge these various aspects, this paper presents a first-time continental, integrated analysis of possible impacts of global change (here defined as climate and water use change) on future flood and drought frequencies for the selected study area of Europe. The global integrated water model WaterGAP is evaluated regarding its capability to simulate high and low-flow regimes and is then applied to calculate relative changes in flood and drought frequencies. The results indicate large ‘critical regions’ for which significant changes in flood or drought risks are expected under the proposed global change scenarios. The regions most prone to a rise in flood frequencies are northern to northeastern Europe, while southern and southeastern Europe show significant increases in drought frequencies. In the critical regions, events with an intensity of today's 100-year floods and droughts may recur every 10–50 years by the 2070s. Though interim and preliminary, and despite the inherent uncertainties in the presented approach, the results underpin the importance of developing mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change impacts on a continental scale.     

Aqueous Phase Reaction of HNO4: The Impact on Tropospheric Chemistry

We use a global atmospheric chemistry transport model to study the possible influence of aqueous phase reactions of peroxynitric acid (HNO₄) on the concentrations and budgets of NO_x, SO_x, O₃ and H₂O₂. Laboratory studies have shown that the aqueous reaction of HNO_4aq withHSO^– _3aq, and the uni-molecular decomposition of the NO₄ ^– anion to form NO₂ ^– (nitrite) occur on a time scale of about a second. Despite a substantial contribution of the reaction of HSO^– _3aq with HNO_4aq to the overall in-cloud conversion of SO₂ to SO₄ ^2–, a simultaneous decrease of other oxidants (most notably H₂O₂) more than compensated the increase in SO₄ ^2– production. The strongest influence of heterogeneous HNO₄ chemistry was found in the boundary layer, where calculated monthly average ozone concentrations were reduced between 2% to 10% andchanges of H₂O₂ between –20% to +10%compared to a simulation which ignores this reaction. Furthermore, SO₂ was increased by 10% to 20% and SO₄ ^2–depleted by up to 10%. Since the resolution of our global model does not enable a detailed comparison with measurements in polluted regions, it is not possible to verify whether considering heterogeneous HNO₄ reactions results in a substantial improvement of atmospheric chemistry transport models. However, the conversion of HNO₄ in the aqueous phase seems to be efficient enough to warrant further laboratory investigations and more detailed model studies on this topic.     

Three centuries of Slovakian drought dynamics

Tree-ring data from Slovakia are used to reconstruct decadal-scale fluctuations of the self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) over 1744–2006. The ring width chronology correlates at 0.58 (annual) and 0.88 (decadal) with regional-scale (48–50°N and 18–20°E) summer (June–August) scPDSI variations (1901–2002). Driest and wettest years common to the tree-ring and target data are 1947, 1948, 1964, and 1916, 1927, 1938, 1941, respectively. The model indicates decadal-scale drought ~1780–1810, 1850–1870, 1940–1960, and during the late twentieth century. The wettest period occurred ~1745–1775. Instrumental measurements and documentary evidence allow the reconstructed drought extremes to be verified and also provide additional insights on associated synoptic drivers and socioeconomic impacts. Comparison of anomalous dry conditions with European-scale fields of 500 hPa geopotential height retains positive pressure anomalies centered over Central Europe leading to atmospheric stability, subsidence and dry conditions. Negative mid-tropospheric geopotential height anomalies over Western Europe are connected with anomalous wet conditions over Slovakia. Nine existing, annually resolved hydro-climatic reconstructions from Central Europe, which were herein considered for comparison with the Slovakian findings, reveal significant high- to low-frequency coherency among the majority of records. Differences between the Slovakian and the other reconstructions are most evident at the end of the nineteenth century.     

A GCM study of future climate response to aerosol pollution reductions

We use the global atmospheric GCM aerosol model ECHAM5-HAM to asses possible impacts of future air pollution mitigation strategies on climate. Air quality control strategies focus on the reduction of aerosol emissions. Here we investigate the extreme case of a maximum feasible end-of-pipe abatement of aerosols in the near term future (2030) in combination with increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations. The temperature response of increasing GHG concentrations and reduced aerosol emissions leads to a global annual mean equilibrium temperature response of 2.18 K. When aerosols are maximally abated only in the Industry and Powerplant sector, while other sectors stay with currently enforced regulations, the temperature response is 1.89 K. A maximum feasible abatement applied in the Domestic and Transport sector, while other sectors remain with the current legislation, leads to a temperature response of 1.39 K. Increasing GHG concentrations alone lead to a temperature response of 1.20 K. We also simulate 2–5% increases in global mean precipitation among all scenarios considered, and the hydrological sensitivity is found to be significantly higher for aerosols than for GHGs. Our study, thus highlights the huge potential impact of future air pollution mitigation strategies on climate and supports the need for urgent GHG emission reductions. GHG and aerosol forcings are not independent as both affect and are influenced by changes in the hydrological cycle. However, within the given range of changes in aerosol emissions and GHG concentrations considered in this study, the climate response towards increasing GHG concentrations and decreasing aerosols emissions is additive.     

Energy balance closure for the LITFASS-2003 experiment

In the first part, this paper synthesises the main results from a series of previous studies on the closure of the local energy balance at low-vegetation sites during the LITFASS-2003 experiment. A residual of up to 25% of the available energy has been found which cannot be fully explained either by the measurement uncertainty of the single components of the surface energy balance or by the length of the flux-averaging period. In the second part, secondary circulations due to heterogeneities in the surface characteristics (roughness, thermal and moisture properties) are discussed as a possible cause for the observed energy balance non-closure. This hypothesis seems to be supported from the fluxes derived from area-averaging measurement techniques (scintillometers, aircraft).