Characteristics of dry-wet abrupt alternation events in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin and the relationship with ENSO

During recent decades, more frequent flood-drought alternations have been seen in China as a result of global climate change and intensive human activities, which have significant implications on water and food security. To better identify the characteristics of flood-drought alternations, we proposed a modified dry-wet abrupt alternation index (DWAAI) and applied the new method in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin (YRB-ML) to analyze the long-term spatio-temporal characteristics of dry-wet abrupt alternation (DWAA) events based on the daily precipitation observations at 75 rainfall stations in summer from 1960 to 2015. We found that the DWAA events have been spreading in the study area with higher frequency and intensity since 1960. In particular, the DWAA events mainly occurred in May and June in the northwest of the YRB-ML, including Hanjiang River Basin, the middle reaches of the YRB, north of Dongting Lake and northwest of Poyang Lake. In addition, we also analyzed the impact of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on DWAA events in the YRB-ML. The results showed that around 41.04% of DWAA events occurred during the declining stages of La Niña or within the subsequent 8 months after La Niña, which implies that La Niña events could be predictive signals of DWAA events. Besides, significant negative correlations have been found between the modified DWAAI values of all the rainfall stations and the sea surface temperature anomalies in the Nino3.4 region within the 6 months prior to the DWAA events, particularly for the Poyang Lake watershed and the middle reaches of the YRB. This study has significant implications on the flood and drought control and water resources management in the YRB-ML under the challenge of future climate change.     

中国东部植被NDVI对气温和降水的时空响应(英文)

Temporal and spatial response characteristics of vegetation NDVI to the variation of temperature and precipitation in the whole year,spring,summer and autumn was analyzed from April 1998 to March 2008 based on the SPOT VGT-NDVI data and daily temperature and precipitation data from 205 meteorological stations in eastern China.The results indicate that as a whole,the response of vegetation NDVI to the variation of temperature is more pronounced than that of precipitation in eastern China.Vegetation NDVI maxi...     

Some Insights into Topographic,Elastic and Self-gravitation Interaction in Modelling Ground Deformation and Gravity Changes in Active Volcanic Areas

Surface displacements and gravity changes due to volcanic sources are influenced by medium properties. We investigate topographic, elastic and self-gravitation interaction in order to outline the major factors that are significant in data modelling. While elastic-gravitational models can provide a suitable approximation to problems of volcanic loading in areas where topographic relief is negligible, for prominent volcanoes the rough topography could affect deformation and gravity changes to a greater extent than self-gravitation. This fact requires the selection, depending on local relief, of a suitable model for use in the interpretation of surface precursors of volcanic activity. We use the three-dimensional Indirect Boundary Element Method to examine the effects of topography on deformation and gravity changes in models of magma chamber inflation/deflation. Topography has a significant effect on predicted surface deformation and gravity changes. Both the magnitude and pattern of the geodetic signals are significantly different compared to half-space solutions. Thus, failure to account for topographic effects in areas of prominent relief can bias the estimate of volcanic source parameters, since the magnitude and pattern of deformation and gravity changes depend on such effects.     

Absorption properties of urban/suburban aerosols in China

The broadband diffuse radiation method is improved to retrieve the aerosol refractive index imaginary part （AIP） and broadband （400-1000 nm mean） single scattering albedo （SSA）. In this method, four sets of SSA selection criteria are proposed for quality control. The method is used to retrieve AIP, SSA and absorptive optical thickness （AbOT） from routine hourly-exposed pyrheliometer and paranometer measurements over 11 sites （meteorological observatories） in China during 1998-2003. Apart from one suburban site （Ejin Qi）, the other urban sites are all located around big or medium cities. As shown in the retrieval results, annual mean SSA during 1998-2003 changes from 0.941 （Wuhan） to 0.849 （Lanzhou）, and AIP from 0.0054 to 0.0203. The 11-site average annual mean SSA and AIP are 0.898 and 0.0119, respectively. SSA during winter is smaller for most sites. There is an evidently positive correlation between SSA and aerosol optical thickness （AOT） for all sites. There is also a positive correlation between SSA and relative humidity for most sites, but a negative correlation for a few sites, such as Kashi and ǚrǚmqi in Northwest China.     

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.     

Experimental Investigation of Turbulent Momentum Transfer in a Neutral Boundary Layer over a Rough Surface

The turbulent characteristics of the neutral boundary layer developing over rough surfaces are not well predicted with operational weather-forecasting models. The problem is attributed to inadequate mixing-length models, to the anisotropy of the flow and to a lack of controlled experimental data against which to validate numerical studies. Therefore, in order to address directly the modelling difficulties for the development of a neutral boundary layer over rough surfaces, and to investigate the turbulent momentum transfer of such a layer, a set of hydraulic flume experiments were carried out. In the experiments, the mean and turbulent quantities were measured by a particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique. The measured velocity variances and fluxes \({(\overline{{u_{i}^{\prime}}{u_{j}^{\prime}}})}\) in longitudinal vertical planes allowed the vertical and longitudinal gradients (?/?z and ?/?x) of the mean and turbulent quantities (fluxes, variances and third-order moments) to be evaluated and the terms of the evolution equations for ?e/?t, \({\partial \overline{u^{\prime 2}}/\partial t}\), \({\partial \overline{w^{\prime 2}}/\partial t}\) and \({\partial \overline{{u^{\prime}}{w^{\prime}}}/\partial t}\) to be quantified, where e is the turbulent kinetic energy. The results show that the pressure-correlation terms allow the turbulent energy to be transferred equitably from \({\overline{{u^{\prime}}^{2}}}\) to \({\overline{{w^{\prime}}^{2}}}\). It appears that the repartition between the constitutive terms of the budget of e, \({\overline{{u^{\prime}}^{2}}}\), \({\overline{{w^{\prime}}^{2}}}\) and \({\overline{{u^{\prime}}{w^{\prime}}}}\) is not significantly affected by the development of the rough neutral boundary layer. For the whole evolution, the transfers of energy are governed by the same terms that are also very similar to the smooth-wall case. The PIV measurements also allowed the spatial integral scales to be computed directly and to be compared with the dissipative and mixing length scales, which were also computed from the data.     

Scaling of Wall-Normal Turbulence Intensity and Vertical Eddy Structures in the Atmospheric Surface Layer

Adequate high-quality data on three-dimensional velocities in the atmospheric surface layer (height \(\delta \)) were acquired in the field at the Qingtu Lake Observation Array. The measurement range occupies nearly the entire logarithmic layer from approximately \(0.006\delta \)–\(0.2\delta \). The turbulence intensity and eddy structures of the velocity fluctuations in the logarithmic region were primarily analyzed, and their variations in the z (wall-normal) direction were revealed. The primary finding was that the turbulent intensity of wall-normal velocity fluctuations exhibits a sharp upswing in the logarithmic region, which differs from classic scaling law and laboratory results. The upswing of the wall-normal turbulence intensity in the logarithmic region is deemed to be linear based on an ensemble of 20 sets of data. In addition, the wall-normal extent of the correlated structures and wall-normal spectra were compared to low Reynolds number results in the laboratory.     

A Parameterization of Dry Thermals and Shallow Cumuli for Mesoscale Numerical Weather Prediction

For numerical weather prediction models and models resolving deep convection, shallow convective ascents are subgrid processes that are not parameterized by classical local turbulent schemes. The mass flux formulation of convective mixing is now largely accepted as an efficient approach for parameterizing the contribution of larger plumes in convective dry and cloudy boundary layers. We propose a new formulation of the EDMF scheme (for Eddy Diffusivity\Mass Flux) based on a single updraft that improves the representation of dry thermals and shallow convective clouds and conserves a correct representation of stratocumulus in mesoscale models. The definition of entrainment and detrainment in the dry part of the updraft is original, and is specified as proportional to the ratio of buoyancy to vertical velocity. In the cloudy part of the updraft, the classical buoyancy sorting approach is chosen. The main closure of the scheme is based on the mass flux near the surface, which is proportional to the sub-cloud layer convective velocity scale w _*. The link with the prognostic grid-scale cloud content and cloud cover and the projection on the non- conservative variables is processed by the cloud scheme. The validation of this new formulation using large-eddy simulations focused on showing the robustness of the scheme to represent three different boundary layer regimes. For dry convective cases, this parameterization enables a correct representation of the countergradient zone where the mass flux part represents the top entrainment (IHOP case). It can also handle the diurnal cycle of boundary-layer cumulus clouds (EUROCS\ARM) and conserve a realistic evolution of stratocumulus (EUROCS\FIRE).     

Climate change and coastal flooding in Metro Boston: impacts and adaptation strategies

Sea level rise (SLR) due to climate change will increase storm surge height along the 825 km long coastline of Metro Boston, USA. Land at risk consists of urban waterfront with piers and armoring, residential areas with and without seawalls and revetments, and undeveloped land with either rock coasts or gently sloping beachfront and low-lying coastal marshes. Risk-based analysis shows that the cumulative 100 year economic impacts on developed areas from increased storm surge flooding depend heavily upon the adaptation response, location, and estimated sea level rise. Generally it is found that it is advantageous to use expensive structural protection in areas that are highly developed and less structural approaches such as floodproofing and limiting or removing development in less developed or environmentally sensitive areas.     

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.