A diatom‐inferred record of lake variability during the last 900 years in Lützow–Holm Bay,East Antarctica

Decadal–centennial‐scale climate variability in coastal Antarctica remains poorly understood due to the limited number of highly resolved, well‐dated records. We present a 900‐year, decadal‐scale reconstruction based on sedimentary diatoms from Lake Abi in Lützow–Holm Bay, East Antarctica. Hydrological change is inferred from diatom ecological preferences in conjunction with an existing regional training set and implies that lake water specific conductivity, depth and nitrogen availability are the key drivers of diatom assemblage change. Lake Abi underwent a series of subtle environmental changes related to these environmental variables, possibly driven by changes in catchment snow melt and the duration of seasonal ice cover. Ordination is used to trace the major patterns of change in the diatom community, with notable shifts identified between 470 and 400 and at ～350 cal a BP (where present = CE 1950). The frequency of environmental variability at Lake Abi is broadly consistent with a record of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation during the last millennium, but contrasts with the apparent climate stability elsewhere in eastern Antarctica. Further research is required to constrain the limnological and ecological responses of lakes in coastal Antarctica to obtain more rigorous palaeoclimate reconstructions from these sites of immense potential.     

Dynamic responses of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration to global temperature changes between 1850 and 2010

Changes in Earth's temperature have significant impacts on the global carbon cycle that vary at different time scales, yet to quantify such impacts with a simple scheme is traditionally deemed difficult. Here, we show that, by incorporating a temperature sensitivity parameter(1.64 ppm yr~(-1) ?C~(-1)) into a simple linear carbon-cycle model, we can accurately characterize the dynamic responses of atmospheric carbon dioxide(CO_2) concentration to anthropogenic carbon emissions and global temperature changes between 1850 and 2010(r~2 0.96 and the root-mean-square error 1 ppm for the period from 1960onward). Analytical analysis also indicates that the multiplication of the parameter with the response time of the atmospheric carbon reservoir(～12 year) approximates the long-term temperature sensitivity of global atmospheric CO_2concentration(～15 ppm?C~(-1)), generally consistent with previous estimates based on reconstructed CO_2 and climate records over the Little Ice Age. Our results suggest that recent increases in global surface temperatures, which accelerate the release of carbon from the surface reservoirs into the atmosphere, have partially offset surface carbon uptakes enhanced by the elevated atmospheric CO_2 concentration and slowed the net rate of atmospheric CO_2 sequestration by global land and oceans by ～30%since the 1960 s. The linear modeling framework outlined in this paper thus provides a useful tool to diagnose the observed atmospheric CO_2 dynamics and monitor their future changes.     

Ensemble simulation of land evapotranspiration in China based on a multi-forcing and multi-model approach

In order to reduce the uncertainty of offline land surface model(LSM) simulations of land evapotranspiration(ET), we used ensemble simulations based on three meteorological forcing datasets [Princeton, ITPCAS(Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Qian] and four LSMs(BATS, VIC, CLM3.0 and CLM3.5), to explore the trends and spatiotemporal characteristics of ET, as well as the spatiotemporal pattern of ET in response to climate factors over mainland China during 1982–2007. The results showed that various simulations of each member and their arithmetic mean(Ens Mean) could capture the spatial distribution and seasonal pattern of ET sufficiently well, where they exhibited more significant spatial and seasonal variation in the ET compared with observation-based ET estimates(Obs MTE). For the mean annual ET, we found that the BATS forced by Princeton forcing overestimated the annual mean ET compared with Obs MTE for most of the basins in China, whereas the VIC forced by Princeton forcing showed underestimations. By contrast, the Ens Mean was closer to Obs MTE, although the results were underestimated over Southeast China. Furthermore, both the Obs MTE and Ens Mean exhibited a significant increasing trend during 1982–98; whereas after 1998, when the last big EI Ni ?no event occurred, the Ens Mean tended to decrease significantly between 1999 and 2007, although the change was not significant for Obs MTE. Changes in air temperature and shortwave radiation played key roles in the long-term variation in ET over the humid area of China, but precipitation mainly controlled the long-term variation in ET in arid and semi-arid areas of China.     

The Congo basin zonal overturning circulation

The Gulf of Guinea in the equatorial Atlantic is characterized by the presence of strong subsidence at certain times of the year. This subsidence appears in June and becomes well established from July to September. Since much of theWest African monsoon flow originates over the Gulf, Guinean subsidence is important for determining moisture sources for the monsoon. Using reanalysis products, I contribute to a physical understanding of what causes this seasonal subsidence, and how it relates to precipitation distributions across West Africa.There is a seasonal zonal overturning circulation above the Congo basin and the Gulf of Guinea in the ERA-Interim, ERA-40, NCEP2, and MERRA reanalyses. The up-branch is located in the Congo basin around 20°E. Mid-tropospheric easterly flows constitute the returning-branch and sinking over the Gulf of Guinea forms the down-branch, which diverges at 2°W near the surface, with winds to the east flowing eastward to complete the circulation. This circulation is driven by surface temperature differences between the eastern Gulf and Congo basin. Land temperatures remain almost uniform, around 298 K, throughout a year, but the Guinean temperatures cool rapidly from 294 K in May to about 290 K in August. These temperature changes increase the ocean/land temperature contrast, up to 8 K, and drive the circulation.I hypothesize that when the overturning circulation is anomalously strong, the northward moisture transport and Sahelian precipitation are also strong. This hypothesis is supported by ERA-Interim and PERSIANN-CDR (Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks-Climate Data Record) data.     

A modeling study of effective radiative forcing and climate response due to tropospheric ozone

This study simulates the effective radiative forcing(ERF) of tropospheric ozone from 1850 to 2013 and its effects on global climate using an aerosol–climate coupled model, BCC AGCM2.0.1 CUACE/Aero, in combination with OMI(Ozone Monitoring Instrument) satellite ozone data. According to the OMI observations, the global annual mean tropospheric column ozone(TCO) was 33.9 DU in 2013, and the largest TCO was distributed in the belts between 30°N and 45°N and at approximately 30°S; the annual mean TCO was higher in the Northern Hemisphere than that in the Southern Hemisphere;and in boreal summer and autumn, the global mean TCO was higher than in winter and spring. The simulated ERF due to the change in tropospheric ozone concentration from 1850 to 2013 was 0.46 W m~(-2), thereby causing an increase in the global annual mean surface temperature by 0.36℃, and precipitation by 0.02 mm d~(-1)(the increase of surface temperature had a significance level above 95%). The surface temperature was increased more obviously over the high latitudes in both hemispheres, with the maximum exceeding 1.4?C in Siberia. There were opposite changes in precipitation near the equator,with an increase of 0.5 mm d~(-1)near the Hawaiian Islands and a decrease of about-0.6 mm d~(-1)near the middle of the Indian Ocean.     

Possible sources of forecast errors generated by the global/regional assimilation and prediction system for landfalling tropical cyclones. Part I: Initial uncertainties

This paper investigates the possible sources of errors associated with tropical cyclone (TC) tracks forecasted using the Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction System (GRAPES). The GRAPES forecasts were made for 16 landfalling TCs in the western North Pacific basin during the 2008 and 2009 seasons, with a forecast length of 72 hours, and using the default initial conditions (“initials”, hereafter), which are from the NCEP-FNL dataset, as well as ECMWF initials. The forecasts are compared with ECMWF forecasts. The results show that in most TCs, the GRAPES forecasts are improved when using the ECMWF initials compared with the default initials. Compared with the ECMWF initials, the default initials produce lower intensity TCs and a lower intensity subtropical high, but a higher intensity South Asia high and monsoon trough, as well as a higher temperature but lower specific humidity at the TC center. Replacement of the geopotential height and wind fields with the ECMWF initials in and around the TC center at the initial time was found to be the most efficient way to improve the forecasts. In addition, TCs that showed the greatest improvement in forecast accuracy usually had the largest initial uncertainties in TC intensity and were usually in the intensifying phase. The results demonstrate the importance of the initial intensity for TC track forecasts made using GRAPES, and indicate the model is better in describing the intensifying phase than the decaying phase of TCs. Finally, the limit of the improvement indicates that the model error associated with GRAPES forecasts may be the main cause of poor forecasts of landfalling TCs. Thus, further examinations of the model errors are required.     

Searching for Added Value in Simulating Climate Extremes with a High-Resolution Regional Climate Model over Western Canada

We evaluate the capacity of a regional climate model to represent observed extreme temperature and precipitation events and also examine the impact of increased resolution, in an effort to identify added value in this respect. Two climate simulations of western Canada (WCan) were conducted with the Canadian Regional Climate Model (version 4) at 15 (CRCM15) and 45?km (CRCM45) horizontal resolution driven at the lateral boundaries by data from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) 40-year Reanalysis (ERA-40) for the period 1973–1995. The simulations were evaluated using the spline-interpolated dataset ANUSPLIN, a daily observational gridded surface temperature and precipitation product with a nominal resolution of approximately 10?km. We examine a range of climate extremes, comprising the 10th and 90th percentiles of daily maximum (TX) and minimum (TN) temperatures, the 90th percentile of daily precipitation (PR90), and the 27 core Climate Daily Extremes (CLIMDEX) indices.

Both simulations exhibit cold biases compared with observations over WCan, with the bias exacerbated at higher resolution, suggesting little added value for temperature overall. There are instances, however, of regional improvement in the spatial pattern of temperature extremes at the higher resolution of CRCM15 (e.g., the CLIMDEX index for the annual number of days when TX?>?25°C). The high-resolution simulations also reveal similarly localized features in precipitation (e.g., rain shadows) that are not resolved at the 45?km resolution. With regard to precipitation extremes, although both simulations generally display wet biases, CRCM15 features a reduced bias in PR90 in all seasons except winter. This improvement occurs despite the fact that spatial and interannual variability of PR90 in CRCM15 is significantly overestimated relative to both CRCM45 and ANUSPLIN. We posit that these characteristics are the result of demonstrable differences between corresponding topographical datasets used in the gridded observations and CRCM, the resulting errors propagated to physical variables tied to elevation and the beneficial effect of subsequent spatial averaging. Because topographical input is often discordant between simulations and gridded observations, it is argued that a limited form of spatial averaging may contribute added value beyond that which has already been noted in previous studies with respect to small-scale climate variability.     

江苏沿海高速公路低能见度浓雾的气候特征和影响因子研究

文章对2012年6月至2014年6月期间发生于江苏省沿海高速公路的浓雾过程(能见度0.5 km)进行统计分析,探讨了低能见度浓雾的气候特征、气象要素变化以及主要环流形势背景。研究结果表明:(1)低能见度浓雾月分布次数有显著差异,3-6月、12月至次年2月雾发生次数最高,春、冬季高于夏、秋季;03:00-05:00为低能见度生成的高峰时段,08:00左右为消散峰值时段。(2)能见度低于0.5 km后,如果相对湿度继续增大到97%左右、温度处于0~4℃、风速在0~2 m·s~(-1)、风向在ENE-SSE,能见度可能继续下降到0.2 km以下。(3)对150366个样本的环流背景统计分析表明,中北部路段的低能见度天气大多数是由锋前雾引起的,主要出现在中低层暖区域内,地面为冷锋前部弱气压场的环流条件下。全路段大面积低能见度天气由辐射雾和平流雾造成,辐射雾天气形势主要是高层为下沉气流,配合地面受弱高压或高压南下;平流雾出现在中低层暖性系统,地面位于入海高压后部或低压倒槽东侧,低层盛行偏东风或东南风。(4)"象鼻型"先期振荡现象适用于沿海高速公路低能见度预报过程,尤其对能见度稳定维持0.2 km以下的浓雾过程有很好的预警和监测作用。     

淮河流域夏季降水异常与若干气候因子的关系

基于旋转经验正交函数分解 (REOF) 方法探讨淮河流域1961—2010年夏季降水与厄尔尼诺/南方涛动 (ENSO)、北大西洋涛动 (NAO)、印度洋偶极子 (IOD)、太平洋年代际振荡 (PDO) 之间的关系,并进一步分析各气候因子不同位相单独以及联合对淮河流域夏季降水的影响。结果表明:淮河流域夏季降水与ENSO,PDO,NAO,IOD等气候因子具有较稳定的相关性,其中,PDO和IOD是影响淮河流域夏季降水的关键因子,且PDO与夏季降水呈显著负相关关系;各气候因子的冷暖位相单独及联合对淮河流域夏季降水的影响不同,PDO的冷期以及NAO,IOD冷位相使流域北部的夏季降水量呈显著增加趋势,PDO分别联合ENSO,NAO和IOD的冷、暖位相对流域北部地区和淮河上游地区的夏季降水影响显著。     

热带印度洋海温海盆一致模的变化规律及其对东亚夏季气候影响的回顾

近十几年,热带印度洋对全球气候的作用越来越受到关注.本文从热带印度洋气候态特征、海温海盆一致模的变化规律以及对东亚夏季气候的影响方面回顾了这些研究工作,并且对这些研究以及存在的不足做了系统的总结.