Cultural climatology and the representation of sky, atmosphere, weather and climate in selected art works of Constable, Monet and Eliasson

The visual turn presents new challenges and methodologies for the pursuit of geography as we seek to communicate our ideas and understanding within and beyond the discipline. This paper attempts to show the potential importance of visual culture within a field that we may call cultural climatology. Cultural climatology seeks to explore the dialectic between society and atmosphere, weather and climate at a variety of temporal and spatial scales. A new visual approach to cultural climatology is presented as a possible way of stimulating conversations across the divide between the social and physical sciences. Images and visualisation assert their presence in the understanding, modelling and communication of many nature/culture debates, highlighting a need both for visual literacy across geography, and for social and physical scientists to share their visual methodologies. Cultural climatologists, like other scientists, need visual methodologies for both the critical construction and deconstruction of the images they wish to present and with which they are confronted. To illustrate the importance of visual literacy for cultural climatologists this paper introduces a sample of works from three artists: Constable, Monet and Eliasson. It shows how an exploration of their work (via a theory of pictures) could help to provide: firstly a methodology for understanding the cultural symbolism of skies and weather; secondly an assessment of the urban atmosphere in London at the turn of the 20th century and thirdly an example of the effective representation of atmosphere, weather and climate involving public participation and understanding. Lessons learned from deconstructing these works of art will then be used to suggest improvements in the visualisation of weather in the production and consumption of weather forecasts (thus, picturing theory).     

Avalanche Climatology of the Western United States,with an Emphasis on Alta,Utah*

Climate and snowpack characteristics of avalanches vary spatially across the western United States, distinguishing three regions. The coastal mountain renges have warmer, denser snow; interior (continental) ranges have colder, less-dense snow; and intermountain ranges have intermediate characteristics. Avalanche character of Alta, Utah, is related to eastern Pacific 700-mb height anomalies for December, January, and March, but not for February. Avalanche conditions around Alta do not always relate to localized pressure gradient winds for December and February.     

Decadal Climatic Anomalies in the Northern Adriatic Sea Inferred from a New Oceanographic Data Set

Abstract. In 1997, Artegiani et al. depicted for the first time the seasonal climatology of the Adriatic Sea; they used the ATOS data set, formed by 5540 oceanographic stations sampled over this continental basin from 1911 to 1980. Lately, two Italian institutes working on the Adriatic Sea for long time, IBM and IRPEM, merged their recent data sets for the northernmost part of the basin. This yielded 3600 new oceanographic stations, concentrated in an area where 809 ATOS stations were located. The new data were quality checked, and then a seasonal climatology was drawn up as a first analysis step. The new climatology differed significantly from the ATOS results; this could be explained, at least partially, by the climatic changes that have occurred on this area. For example, air temperature increased significantly over northern Italy starting from 1988. Variations of the observed air temperature and Po River runoff qualitatively agree with sea surface temperature and salinity variations. A preliminary computation of heat fluxes based on ECMWF reanalysis confirms an increased heat flux to the Northern Adriatic Sea starting from 1988.     

气候概率分布理论的新内涵及其展望

近年来,国内外学者关于气候概率分布理论和应用的研究已经取得了许多新的成果,本文简要回顾近年来这一领域已经发展起来的新内涵,并提出未来可能的研究设想。     

An assessment of the subduction rate in the CMIP6 historical experiment

Subduction process is a dynamical bridge for the exchanges of heat between the atmosphere and subsurface ocean water, which is regarded as a central proxy for the ocean climate studies. Given its key indicator in climate signals, it is of importance to examine the ability of a model to simulate the global subduction rate before investigating the climate dynamics. In this paper, we evaluated the ability of 21 climate models from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6(CMIP6) in simulating t...     

硫酸盐气溶胶对长江中下游夏季降水年代际转型的影响

为了研究人为硫酸盐气溶胶增长对1970年代末长江中下游夏季降水年代际转型的影响,使用全球气候模式（GFDL—AM2）,对硫酸盐直接气候效应进行了模拟。结果表明,硫酸盐气溶胶增长引起的降水年代际变化与观测到的降水转型有很好的时空一致性;观测中包括副热带高压西伸南移、中国东部近地面异常北风等夏季风年代际减弱信号以及对应的垂直温度、上升运动分布等均能很好地被模式再现。机制上,硫酸盐气溶胶通过引起负辐射强迫,造成中国中东部的大部分地区地面到对流层中层降温,海陆热力对比减小,使东亚夏季风减弱,雨带容易在长江中下游停留,从而导致该区域降水增多。于是,硫酸盐气溶胶增多对长江中下游降水年代际转型有重要贡献。     

Climate hypersensitivity to solar forcing?

We compare the equilibrium climate responses of a quasi-dynamical energy balance model to radiative forcing by equivalent changes in CO₂, solar total irradiance (S_tot) and solar UV (S_UV). The response is largest in the S_UV case, in which the imposed UV radiative forcing is preferentially absorbed in the layer above 250 mb, in contrast to the weak response from global-columnar radiative loading by increases in CO₂ or S_tot. The hypersensitive response of the climate system to solar UV forcing is caused by strongly coupled feedback involving vertical static stability, tropical thick cirrus ice clouds and stratospheric ozone. This mechanism offers a plausible explanation of the apparent hypersensitivity of climate to solar forcing, as suggested by analyses of recent climatic records. The model hypersensitivity strongly depends on climate parameters, especially cloud radiative properties, but is effective for arguably realistic values of these parameters. The proposed solar forcing mechanism should be further confirmed using other models (e.g., general circulation models) that may better capture radiative and dynamical couplings of the troposphere and stratosphere.     

广州市低温日的气候特点及其变化

统计了1951～2008年广州市最低气温≤5℃的低温日数,发现近58年来呈现年低温日数减少、低温终日提前、低温期缩短的趋势,年低温日数主要有2～3年和7～8年的变化周期.对低温日数异常年景冬季500 hPa环流进行合成分析发现,广州年低温日数显著偏多和偏少年份的亚欧地区冬季500 hPa高度距平场基本呈反位相分布.另外...     

AN ANALYSIS OF THE ATMOSPHERIC WATER BALANCE OVER THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

An analysis of the atmospheric water balance over the Southern Hemisphere is conducted for the time period June 1980 through May 1984 that includes the 1982–1983 El Niño event. Notable spatial and temporal variations are evident in the moisture flux divergence fields, in the mean meridional transport of water vapor, and in the moisture content of portions of the tropical atmosphere that are attributable to the 1982–1983 ENSO event. Estimates of the net gain/loss of atmospheric water are provided for 10° latitude belts; although the magnitudes of the differences between evaporation and precipitation fall within the range of previous estimates, they are most probably underestimated. [Key words: atmospheric water balance, El Niño, hydrologic cycle, southern hemisphere, water vapor flux.]     

北半球定常波输送西风动量的气候态及其年变化

利用高分辨率的再分析资料ERA40，分析了纬向平均状态下北半球不同尺度的定常波对西风动量沿经向输送的气候态及其年变化。结果表明，对流层中定常波对西风动量输送最强的区域位于中纬度对流层的中上层，定常波在该区域长年向北输送纬向动量，且输送中心随季节有南北移动和强弱变化。此外，在高纬度地区的对流层中上层以及赤道对流层顶附近还有两个相对较弱的输送中心。前者对西风动量的输送长年向南，其垂直范围从对流层低层一直伸展到平流层下层，中心位置相对固定，强度有明显的季节变化。后者位置也相对固定，但输送方向随季节改变。平流层中定常波对西风动量的输送主要位于中高纬度的平流层中上层，定常波在该区域长年向北输送西风动量，中心位置非常稳定，而强度则随季节变化明显。行星尺度定常波的输送作用与总波动的输送作用非常一致，并在很大程度上决定了波动对动量输送强度的季节变化。天气尺度定常波和10波以上的短波的输送作用主要集中在中纬度对流层的中高层。前者与行星尺度定常波共同决定了该区域内的输送强度，并主导了输送中心的南北移动；后者的作用很小，除夏季外均可以忽略。作者给出的不同尺度定常波对西风动量输送的气候态分布不但可以作为日后研究其年际变化的基础，而且还可以为大气环流模式对大气环流模拟能力的评估提供重要的参考。