scholarly journals Greenhouse- and orbital-forced climate extremes during the early Eocene

Author(s):  
Jeffrey T. Kiehl ◽  
Christine A. Shields ◽  
Mark A. Snyder ◽  
James C. Zachos ◽  
Mathew Rothstein

The Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a significant global warming event in Earth's deep past (56 Mya). The warming across the PETM boundary was driven by a rapid rise in greenhouse gases. The event also coincided with a time of maximum insolation in Northern Hemisphere summer. There is increased evidence that the mean warming was accompanied by enhanced seasonality and/or extremes in precipitation (and flooding) and drought. A high horizontal resolution (50 km) global climate model is used to explore changes in the seasonal cycle of surface temperature, precipitation, evaporation minus precipitation and river run-off for regions where proxy data are available. Comparison for the regions indicates the model accurately simulates the observed changes in these climatic characteristics with North American interior warming and drying, and warming and increased river run-off at other regions. The addition of maximum insolation in Northern Hemisphere summer leads to a drier North America, but wetter conditions at most other locations. Long-range transport of atmospheric moisture plays a critical role in explaining regional changes in the water cycle. Such high-frequency variations in precipitation might also help explain discrepancies or misinterpretation of some climate proxies from the same locations, especially where sampling is coarse, i.e. at or greater than the frequency of precession.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Hyperthermals: rapid and extreme global warming in our geological past’.

Author(s):  
Bo-Joung Park ◽  
Seung-Ki Min ◽  
Evan Weller

Abstract Summer season has lengthened substantially across Northern Hemisphere (NH) land over the past decades, which has been attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases. This study examines additional future changes in summer season onset and withdrawal under 1.5℃ and 2.0℃ global warming conditions using multiple atmospheric global climate model (AGCM) large-ensemble simulations from the Half a degree Additional warming, Prognosis and Projected Impacts (HAPPI) project. Five AGCMs provide more than 100 runs of 10-year length for three experiments: All-Hist (current decade: 2006-2015), Plus15, and Plus20 (1.5℃ and 2.0℃ above pre-industrial condition, respectively). Results show that with 1.5℃ and 2.0℃ warmer conditions summer season will become longer by a few days to weeks over entire NH lands, with slightly larger contributions by delay in withdrawal due to stronger warming in late summer. Stronger changes are observed more in middle latitudes than high latitudes and largest expansion (up to three weeks) is found over East Asia and the Mediterranean. Associated changes in summer-like day frequency is further analyzed focusing on the extended summer edges. The hot days occur more frequently in lower latitudes including East Asia, USA and Mediterranean, in accord with largest summer season lengthening. Further, difference between Plus15 and Plus20 indicates that summer season lengthening and associated increases in hot days can be reduced significantly if warming is limited to 1.5℃. Overall, similar results are obtained from CMIP5 coupled GCM simulations (based on RCP8.5 scenario experiments), suggesting a weak influence of air-sea coupling on summer season timing changes.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Zhao

<p>Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow, elongated, synoptic jets of water vapor that play important roles in the global water cycle and regional weather and climate extremes. Accurate climate projections of high impact global severe flood and drought events hinge on the climate models' ability to simulate and predict the AR phenomenon. This presentation will provide a systematic evaluation of the AR statistics and characteristics simulated by the GFDL new generation high resolution global climate model participating in the CMIP6 High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HiResMIP). The analyses include the historical period (1950-2014) compared against the ERA-Interim reanalysis results as well as future projections under global warming scenarios. The AR characteristics such as the spatial distribution, frequency, and intensity are explored in conjunction with large-scale circulation patterns such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation, and the Pacific-North-American teleconnections pattern. Potential changes in AR characteristics with global warming scenarios and their implications to weather and climate extremes will be discussed.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (6) ◽  
pp. 1258-1263 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. David Neelin ◽  
Sandeep Sahany ◽  
Samuel N. Stechmann ◽  
Diana N. Bernstein

Precipitation accumulations, integrated over rainfall events, can be affected by both intensity and duration of the storm event. Thus, although precipitation intensity is widely projected to increase under global warming, a clear framework for predicting accumulation changes has been lacking, despite the importance of accumulations for societal impacts. Theory for changes in the probability density function (pdf) of precipitation accumulations is presented with an evaluation of these changes in global climate model simulations. We show that a simple set of conditions implies roughly exponential increases in the frequency of the very largest accumulations above a physical cutoff scale, increasing with event size. The pdf exhibits an approximately power-law range where probability density drops slowly with each order of magnitude size increase, up to a cutoff at large accumulations that limits the largest events experienced in current climate. The theory predicts that the cutoff scale, controlled by the interplay of moisture convergence variance and precipitation loss, tends to increase under global warming. Thus, precisely the large accumulations above the cutoff that are currently rare will exhibit increases in the warmer climate as this cutoff is extended. This indeed occurs in the full climate model, with a 3 °C end-of-century global-average warming yielding regional increases of hundreds of percent to >1,000% in the probability density of the largest accumulations that have historical precedents. The probabilities of unprecedented accumulations are also consistent with the extension of the cutoff.


2016 ◽  
Vol 155 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. SILVA ◽  
L. KUMAR ◽  
F. SHABANI ◽  
M. C. PICANÇO

SUMMARYTomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the most important vegetable crops globally and an important agricultural sector for generating employment. Open field cultivation of tomatoes exposes the crop to climatic conditions, whereas greenhouse production is protected. Hence, global warming will have a greater impact on open field cultivation of tomatoes rather than the controlled greenhouse environment. Although the scale of potential impacts is uncertain, there are techniques that can be implemented to predict these impacts. Global climate models (GCMs) are useful tools for the analysis of possible impacts on a species. The current study aims to determine the impacts of climate change and the major factors of abiotic stress that limit the open field cultivation of tomatoes in both the present and future, based on predicted global climate change using CLIMatic indEX and the A2 emissions scenario, together with the GCM Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)-Mk3·0 (CS), for the years 2050 and 2100. The results indicate that large areas that currently have an optimum climate will become climatically marginal or unsuitable for open field cultivation of tomatoes due to progressively increasing heat and dry stress in the future. Conversely, large areas now marginal and unsuitable for open field cultivation of tomatoes will become suitable or optimal due to a decrease in cold stress. The current model may be useful for plant geneticists and horticulturalists who could develop new regional stress-resilient tomato cultivars based on needs related to these modelling projections.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Aaron Match ◽  
Stephan Fueglistaler

AbstractGlobal warming projections of dynamics are less robust than projections of thermodynamics. However, robust aspects of the thermodynamics can be used to constrain some dynamical aspects. This paper argues that tropospheric expansion under global warming (a thermodynamical process) explains changes in the amplitude of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) in the lower and middle stratosphere (a dynamical process). A theoretical scaling for tropospheric expansion of approximately 6 hPa K−1 is derived, which agrees well with global climate model (GCM) experiments. Using this theoretical scaling, the response of QBO amplitude to global warming is predicted by shifting the climatological QBO amplitude profile upwards by 6 hPa per Kelvin of global warming. In global warming simulations, QBO amplitude in the lower- to mid-stratosphere shifts upwards as predicted by tropospheric expansion. Applied to observations, the tropospheric expansion framework suggests a historical weakening of QBO amplitude at 70 hPa of 3% decade−1 from 1953-2020. This expected weakening trend is half of the 6% decade−1 from 1953-2012 detected and attributed to global warming in a recent study. The previously reported trend was reinforced by record low QBO amplitudes during the mid-2000s, from which the QBO has since recovered. Given the modest weakening expected on physical grounds, past decadal modulations of QBO amplitude are reinterpreted as a hitherto unrecognized source of internal variability. This large internal variability dominates over the global warming signal, such that despite 65 years of observations, there is not yet a statistically significant weakening trend.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 1659-1675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min-Seop Ahn ◽  
Daehyun Kim ◽  
Yoo-Geun Ham ◽  
Sungsu Park

AbstractThe Maritime Continent (MC) region is known as a “barrier” in the life cycle of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). During boreal winter, the MJO detours the equatorial MC land region southward and propagates through the oceanic region. Also, about half of the MJO events that initiate over the Indian Ocean cease around the MC. The mechanism through which the MC affects MJO propagation, however, has remained unanswered. The current study investigates the MJO–MC interaction with a particular focus on the role of MC land convection. Using a global climate model that simulates both mean climate and MJO realistically, we performed two sensitivity experiments in which updraft plume radius is set to its maximum and minimum value only in the MC land grid points, making convective top deeper and shallower, respectively. Our results show that MC land convection plays a key role in shaping the 3D climatological moisture distribution around the MC through its local and nonlocal effects. Shallower and weaker MC land convection results in a steepening of the vertical and meridional mean moisture gradient over the MC region. The opposite is the case when MC land convection becomes deeper and stronger. The MJO’s eastward propagation is enhanced (suppressed) with the steeper (lower) mean moisture gradient. The moist static energy (MSE) budget of the MJO reveals the vertical and meridional advection of the mean MSE by MJO wind anomalies as the key processes that are responsible for the changes in MJO propagation characteristics. Our results pinpoint the critical role of the background moisture gradient on MJO propagation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 8975-9015
Author(s):  
E. M. Knudsen ◽  
J. E. Walsh

Abstract. Metrics of storm activity in Northern Hemisphere high- and midlatitudes are evaluated from historical output and future projections by the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM1-M) coupled global climate model. The European Re-Analysis Interim (ERA-Interim) and the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4), a global climate model of the same vintage as NorESM1-M, provide benchmarks for comparison. The focus is on the autumn and early winter (September through December), the period when the ongoing and projected Arctic sea ice retreat is greatest. Storm tracks derived from a vorticity-based algorithm for storm identification are reproduced well by NorESM1-M, although the tracks are somewhat better resolved in the higher-resolution ERA-Interim and CCSM4. The tracks are projected to shift polewards in the future as climate changes under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) forcing scenarios. Cyclones are projected to become generally more intense in the high-latitudes, especially over the Alaskan region, although in some other areas the intensity is projected to decrease. While projected changes in track density are less coherent, there is a general tendency towards less frequent storms in midlatitudes and more frequent storms in high-latitudes, especially the Baffin Bay/Davis Strait region. Autumn precipitation is projected to increase significantly across the entire high-latitudes. Together with the projected increases in storm intensity and sea level and the loss of sea ice, this increase in precipitation implies a greater vulnerability to coastal flooding and erosion, especially in the Alaskan region. The projected changes in storm intensity and precipitation (as well as sea ice and sea level pressure) scale generally linearly with the RCP value of the forcing and with time through the 21st century.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (20) ◽  
pp. 8033-8044 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin M. Quinn ◽  
J. David Neelin

Abstract The total amount of precipitation integrated across a precipitation feature (contiguous precipitating grid cells exceeding a minimum rain rate) is a useful measure of the aggregate size of the disturbance, expressed as the rate of water mass lost or latent heat released (i.e., the power of the disturbance). The probability distribution of cluster power is examined over the tropics using Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B42 satellite-retrieved rain rates and global climate model output. Observed distributions are scale-free from the smallest clusters up to a cutoff scale at high cluster power, after which the probability drops rapidly. After establishing an observational baseline, precipitation from the High Resolution Atmospheric Model (HiRAM) at two horizontal grid spacings (roughly 0.5° and 0.25°) is compared. When low rain rates are excluded by choosing a minimum rain-rate threshold in defining clusters, the model accurately reproduces observed cluster power statistics at both resolutions. Middle and end-of-century cluster power distributions are investigated in HiRAM in simulations with prescribed sea surface temperatures and greenhouse gas concentrations from a “business as usual” global warming scenario. The probability of high cluster power events increases strongly by end of century, exceeding a factor of 10 for the highest power events for which statistics can be computed. Clausius–Clapeyron scaling accounts for only a fraction of the increased probability of high cluster power events.


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