Past,present and future climatic forcing due to greenhouse gases

An advanced one-dimensional radiative-convective model (RCM) is used to estimate the past, present and fu-ture climatic forcings induced by greenhouse gases of anthropogenic origin, such as CO2, CH4, N2O and CFCs, in this paper. The results show that the decadal climatic forcing for the last decade is one-order bigger than that prior to the year 1900, and in the case of no control on the emission of the greenhouse gases the climatic forcing for the year 2100 will be almost 4 times as much as now.     

Climatic change and Chinese population growth dynamics over the last millennium

The climate–population relationship has long been conceived. Although the topic has been repeatedly investigated, most of the related works are Eurocentric or qualitative. Consequently, the relationship between climate and population remains ambiguous. In this study, fine-grained temperature reconstructions and historical population data sets have been employed to statistically test a hypothesized relationship between temperature change and population growth (i.e., cooling associated with below average population growth) in China over the past millennium. The important results were: (1) Long-term temperature change significantly determined the population growth dynamics of China. However, spatial variation existed, whilst population growth in Central China was shown to be responsive to both long- and short-term temperature changes; in marginal areas, population growth was only sensitive to short-term temperature fluctuations. (2) Temporally, the temperature–population relationship was obscured in some periods, which was attributable to the factors of drought and social buffers. In summary, a temperature–population relationship was mediated by geographic factors, the aridity threshold, and social factors. Given the upcoming threat posed by climate change to human societies, this study seeks to improve our knowledge and understanding of the climate–society relationship.     

Land surface temperature shaped by urban fractions in megacity region

The influence of spatial scales on surface fluxes is an interesting but not fully investigated question. This paper presents an analysis on the influence of spatial scales on surface fluxes in the north Tibetan Plateau based on eddy covariance (EC) and large aperture scintillometer (LAS) data at site Nagqu/BJ, combined with the land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS). The analysis shows that sensible heat fluxes calculated with LAS data (H_LAS) agree reasonably well with sensible heat fluxes calculated with EC data (H_EC) in the rain and dry seasons. The difference in their footprints due to the wind direction is an important reason for the differences in H_EC and H_LAS. The H_LAS are statistically more consistent with H_EC when their footprints overlap than when their footprints do not. A detailed analysis on H_EC and H_LAS changes with net radiation and wind direction in rain and dry season indicates that the spatial heterogeneity in net radiation created by clouds contributes greatly to the differences in H_EC and H_LAS in short-term variations. A significant relationship between the difference in footprint-weighted averages of LST and difference in H_EC and H_LAS suggests that the spatial heterogeneity in LST at two spatial scales is a reason for the differences in H_EC and H_LAS and that LST has a positive correlation with the differences in H_EC and H_LAS. A significant relationship between the footprint-weighted averages of NDVI and the ratio of sensible heat fluxes at two spatial scales to net radiation (H/Rn) in the rain season supports the analysis that the spatial heterogeneity in canopy at two spatial scales is another reason for differences in H_EC and H_LAS and that canopy has a negative correlation with (H/Rn). An analysis on the influence of the difference in aerodynamic roughness lengths at two spatial scales on sensible heat fluxes shows that the influence is greater in the dry season and smaller in the rain season because the ratio of z_{0m_LAS} to z_{0m_EC} is big in the dry season and is close to 1.0 in the rain season. This study on spatial scales on surface fluxes in the Tibetan Plateau will be helpful in analyzing and understanding its influence on climate.     

UV attenuation in the cloudy atmosphere

Ultraviolet (UV) energy absorption plays a very important role in the Earth–atmosphere system. Based on observational data for Beijing, we suggest that some atmospheric constituents utilize or transfer UV energy in chemical and photochemical (C&P) reactions, in addition to those which absorb UV energy directly. These constituents are primarily volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from both vegetative and anthropogenic sources. The total UV energy loss in the cloudy atmosphere for Beijing in 1990 was 78.9 Wm⁻². This attenuation was caused by ozone (48.3 Wm⁻²), other compounds in the atmosphere (26.6 Wm⁻²) and a scattering factor (4.0 Wm⁻²). Our results for a cloudy atmosphere in the Beijing area show that the absorption due to these other compounds occurs largely through the mediation of water vapor. This fraction of energy loss has not been fully accounted for in previous models. Observations and previous models results suggest that 1) a cloudy atmosphere absorbs 25∼30 Wm⁻² more solar shortwave radiation than models predict; and 2) aerosols can significantly decrease the downward mean UV-visible radiation and the absorbed solar radiation at the surface by up to 28 and 23 Wm⁻², respectively. Thus, quantitative study of UV and visible absorption by atmospheric constituents involved in homogeneous and heterogeneous C&P reactions is important for atmospheric models.     

Estimation of Surface-Layer Scaling Parameters in the Unstable Boundary Layer: Implications for Orographic Flow Speed-Up

A method is proposed for estimating the surface-layer depth \((z_s)\) and the friction velocity \((u_*)\) as a function of stability (here quantified by the Obukhov length, L) over the complete range of unstable flow regimes. This method extends that developed previously for stable conditions by Argaín et al. (Boundary-Layer Meteorol 130:15–28, 2009), but uses a qualitatively different approach. The method is specifically used to calculate the fractional speed-up \((\varDelta S)\) in flow over a ridge, although it is suitable for more general boundary-layer applications. The behaviour of \(z_s \left( L\right) \) and \(u_*\left( L\right) \) as a function of L is indirectly assessed via calculation of \(\varDelta S\left( L\right) \) using the linear model of Hunt et al. (Q J R Meteorol Soc 29:16–26, 1988) and its comparison with the field measurements reported in Coppin et al. (Boundary-Layer Meteorol 69:173–199, 1994) and with numerical simulations carried out using a non-linear numerical model, FLEX. The behaviour of \(\varDelta S\) estimated from the linear model is clearly improved when \(u_*\) is calculated using the method proposed here, confirming the importance of accounting for the dependences of \(z_s\left( L \right) \) and \(u_*\left( L \right) \) on L to better represent processes in the unstable boundary layer.     

Characteristics of carbonyl compounds in ambient air of Shanghai,China

The levels of carbonyl compounds in Shanghai ambient air were measured in five periods from January 2007 to October 2007 (covering winter, high-air-pollution days, spring, summer and autumn). A total of 114 samples were collected and eighteen carbonyls were identified. Formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acetone were the most abundant carbonyls and their mean concentrations of 19.40 ± 12.00, 15.92 ± 12.07 and 11.86 ± 7.04 μg m⁻³ respectively, in the daytime for five sampling periods. Formaldehyde and acetaldehyde showed similar diurnal profiles with peak mixing ratios in the morning and early afternoon during the daytime. Their mean concentrations were highest in summer and lowest in winter. Acetone showed reversed seasonal variation. The high molecular weight (HMW, ≥C5) carbonyls also showed obvious diurnal variations with higher concentrations in the daytime in summer and autumn, while they were all not detected in winter. Formaldehyde and acetaldehyde played an important role in removing OH radicals in the atmosphere, but the contribution of acetone was below 1%. The carbonyls levels in high-air-pollution days were reported. More carbonyl species with higher concentrations were found in high-air-pollution days than in spring. These carbonyls were transported with other pollutants from north and northwest in March 27 to April 2, 2007 and then mixed with local sources. Comparing with Beijing and Guangzhou, the concentrations of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde in Shanghai were the highest, which indicated that the air pollution in Shanghai was even worse than expected.     

The Representativeness of Air Quality Monitoring Sites in the Urban Areas of a Mountainous City

Lanzhou is a typical mountainous city with severe air pollution in northwestern China. This study uses hourly observational data of air pollutants at five air quality monitoring sites in Lanzhou from July to December 2015 to discuss data quality control and the representativeness of the monitoring sites(four urban sites and one suburban site). A fuzzy matrix is applied to study primary air pollutants. The results show that of the six routinely monitored pollutants,the primary pollutant is PM_10 during the study period. Based on lag correlation analysis and one-way analysis of variance, it is concluded that there are redundant observations at the four urban sites for the timely diffusion and transport of air pollutants from the same general area. The coefficient of divergence(COD) method is then used to evaluate the spatial distribution differences, and the primary air pollutant PM_10 shows differences at each site. COD can be used as a positive indicator to describe site representativeness. To evaluate the overall air pollution in the valley, correlation analysis is performed between the PM_10 concentration retrieved from aerosol optical depth satellite data and the concentration from the four urban monitoring sites. Among these, the correlation between the workers' hospital site data and the retrieval data is the highest, passing the 90% confidence level. A new representative evaluation model for air quality monitoring sites, R_s = 0.77 COD + 0.23R_(retrieval), is established by using COD and correlation coefficients between routine observations and satellite retrieval products. From this model, it can be concluded that the biological products institute site in Lanzhou is the most representative site for the evaluation of air pollution out of the four urban air quality monitoring sites from July to December 2015.     

Adaptation of Pressure Based CFD Solvers for Mesoscale Atmospheric Problems

General purpose Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solvers are frequently used in small-scale urban pollution dispersion simulations without a large extent of ver- tical flow. Vertical flow, however, plays an important role in the formation of local breezes, such as urban heat island induced breezes that have great significance in the ventilation of large cities. The effects of atmospheric stratification, anelasticity and Coriolis force must be taken into account in such simulations. We introduce a general method for adapting pressure based CFD solvers to atmospheric flow simulations in order to take advantage of their high flexibility in geometrical modelling and meshing. Compressibility and thermal stratification effects are taken into account by utilizing a novel system of transformations of the field variables and by adding consequential source terms to the model equations of incompressible flow. Phenomena involving mesoscale to microscale coupled effects can be analyzed without model nesting, applying only local grid refinement of an arbitrary level. Elements of the method are validated against an analytical solution, results of a reference calculation, and a laboratory scale urban heat island circulation experiment. The new approach can be applied with benefits to several areas of application. Inclusion of the moisture transport phenomena and the surface energy balance are important further steps towards the practical application of the method.     

Climatic regime shift and decadal anomalous events in China

Climatic time series from historical documents and instrumental records from China showed temporal and regional patterns in the last two to three centuries, including two multidecadal oscillations at quasi-20-year and quasi-70-year timescales revealed by signal analysis from wavelet transform. Climatic anomalous events on the decadal timescale were identified based on the two oscillations when their positive (or negative) phases coincide with each other to amplify amplitude. The coldest event occurred in the decade of 1965–1975 in eastern China, while the periods of 1920–1930, 1940–1950, and 1988–2000 appeared to be warmer in most parts of China. For the precipitation series in northern China, the dry anomalous event was found in the late 1920s, while the wet anomalous event occurred in the 1950s. A severe drought in 1927–1929 in northern China coincided with the anomalous warm and dry decade, caused large-scale famine in nine provinces over northern China. Climatic anomalous events with a warm-dry or cold-wet association in the physical climate system would potentially cause severe negative impacts on natural ecosystem in the key vulnerable region over northern China. The spatial pattern of summer rainfall anomalies in the eastern China monsoon region showed an opposite variations in phase between the Yellow River Valley (North China) and the mid-low Yangtze River Valley as well as accompanied the shift of the northernmost monsoon boundary. Climatic regime shifts for different time points in the last 200 years were identified. In North China, transitions from dry to wet periods occurred around 1800, 1875, and 1940 while the transitions from wet to dry periods appeared around 1840, 1910, and the late 1970s. The reversal transition in these time points can also be found in the lower Yangtze River. Climatic regime shifts in China were linked to the interaction of mid- and low latitude atmospheric circulations (the westerly flow and the monsoon flow) when they cross the Tibetan Plateau in East Asia.     

How effective is the new generation of GPM satellite precipitation in characterizing the rainfall variability over Malaysia?

We investigated the potential of the new generation of satellite precipitation product from the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) to characterize the rainfall in Malaysia. Most satellite precipitation products have limited ability to precisely characterize the high dynamic rainfall variation that occurred at both time and scale in this humid tropical region due to the coarse grid size to meet the physical condition of the smaller land size, sub-continent and islands. Prior to the status quo, an improved satellite precipitation was required to accurately measure the rainfall and its distribution. Subsequently, the newly released of GPM precipitation product at half-hourly and 0.1° resolution served an opportunity to anticipate the aforementioned conflict. Nevertheless, related evidence was not found and therefore, this study made an initiative to fill the gap. A total of 843 rain gauges over east (Borneo) and west Malaysia (Peninsular) were used to evaluate the rainfall the GPM rainfall data. The assessment covered all critical rainy seasons which associated with Asian Monsoon including northeast (Nov. - Feb.), southwest (May - Aug.) and their subsequent inter-monsoon period (Mar. - Apr. & Sep. - Oct.). The ability of GPM to provide quantitative rainfall estimates and qualitative spatial rainfall patterns were analysed. Our results showed that the GPM had good capacity to depict the spatial rainfall patterns in less heterogeneous rainfall patterns (Spearman’s correlation, 0.591 to 0.891) compared to the clustered one (r = 0.368 to 0.721). Rainfall intensity and spatial heterogeneity that is largely driven by seasonal monsoon has significant influence on GPM ability to resolve local rainfall patterns. In quantitative rainfall estimation, large errors can be primarily associated with the rainfall intensity increment. 77% of the error variation can be explained through rainfall intensity particularly the high intensity (> 35 mm d^-1). A strong relationship between GPM rainfall and error was found from heavy (~35 mm d^-1) to violent rain (160 mm d^-1). The output of this study provides reference regarding the performance of GPM data for respective hydrology studies in this region.