Land–Ocean Shifts in Tropical Precipitation Linked to Surface Temperature and Humidity Change

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 4527-4545 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Hugo Lambert ◽  
Angus J. Ferraro ◽  
Robin Chadwick
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Specific Humidity ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Tropical Precipitation ◽  
Humidity Change ◽  
Cmip5 Gcms

A compositing scheme that predicts changes in tropical precipitation under climate change from changes in near-surface relative humidity (RH) and temperature is presented. As shown by earlier work, regions of high tropical precipitation in general circulation models (GCMs) are associated with high near-surface RH and temperature. Under climate change, it is found that high precipitation continues to be associated with the highest surface RH and temperatures in most CMIP5 GCMs, meaning that it is the “rank” of a given GCM grid box with respect to others that determines how much precipitation falls rather than the absolute value of surface temperature or RH change, consistent with the weak temperature gradient approximation. Further, it is demonstrated that the majority of CMIP5 GCMs are close to a threshold near which reductions in land RH produce large reductions in the RH ranking of some land regions, causing reductions in precipitation over land, particularly South America, and compensating increases over ocean. Recent work on predicting future changes in specific humidity allows the prediction of the qualitative sense of precipitation change in some GCMs when land surface humidity changes are unknown. However, the magnitudes of predicted changes are too small. Further study, perhaps into the role of radiative and land–atmosphere feedbacks, is necessary.

scholarly journals Understanding Decreases in Land Relative Humidity with Global Warming: Conceptual Model and GCM Simulations

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (24) ◽  
pp. 9045-9061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Byrne ◽  
Paul A. O’Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Relative Humidity ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Moisture Transport ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Stomatal Closure ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Box Model ◽  
Specific Humidity ◽  
Near Surface

Abstract Climate models simulate a strong land–ocean contrast in the response of near-surface relative humidity to global warming; relative humidity tends to increase slightly over oceans but decrease substantially over land. Surface energy balance arguments have been used to understand the response over ocean but are difficult to apply over more complex land surfaces. Here, a conceptual box model is introduced, involving atmospheric moisture transport between the land and ocean and surface evapotranspiration, to investigate the decreases in land relative humidity as the climate warms. The box model is applied to simulations with idealized and full-complexity (CMIP5) general circulation models, and it is found to capture many of the features of the simulated changes in land humidity. The simplest version of the box model gives equal fractional increases in specific humidity over land and ocean. This relationship implies a decrease in land relative humidity given the greater warming over land than ocean and modest changes in ocean relative humidity, consistent with a mechanism proposed previously. When evapotranspiration is included, it is found to be of secondary importance compared to ocean moisture transport for the increase in land specific humidity, but it plays an important role for the decrease in land relative humidity. For the case of a moisture forcing over land, such as from stomatal closure, the response of land relative humidity is strongly amplified by the induced change in land surface–air temperature, and this amplification is quantified using a theory for the link between land and ocean temperatures.

scholarly journals Extreme Drought Events over the Amazon Basin: The Perspective from the Reconstruction of South American Hydroclimate

Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatriz Garcia ◽  
Renata Libonati ◽  
Ana Nunes
Keyword(s):  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Amazon Basin ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Extreme Drought ◽  
Severe Drought ◽  
South American ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Near Surface

The Amazon basin has experienced severe drought events for centuries, mainly associated with climate variability connected to tropical North Atlantic and Pacific sea surface temperature anomalous warming. Recently, these events are becoming more frequent, more intense and widespread. Because of the Amazon droughts environmental and socioeconomic impacts, there is an increased demand for understanding the characteristics of such extreme events in the region. In that regard, regional models instead of the general circulation models provide a promising strategy to generate more detailed climate information of extreme events, seeking better representation of physical processes. Due to uneven spatial distribution and gaps found in station data in tropical South America, and the need of more refined climate assessment in those regions, satellite-enhanced regional downscaling for applied studies (SRDAS) is used in the reconstruction of South American hydroclimate, with hourly to monthly outputs from January 1998. Accordingly, this research focuses on the analyses of recent extreme drought events in the years of 2005 and 2010 in the Amazon Basin, using the SRDAS monthly means of near-surface temperature and relative humidity, precipitation and vertically integrated soil moisture fields. Results from this analysis corroborate spatial and temporal patterns found in previous studies on extreme drought events in the region, displaying the distinctive features of the 2005 and 2010 drought events.

scholarly journals An ensemble of AMIP simulations with prescribed land surface temperatures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Ackerley ◽  
Robin Chadwick ◽  
Dietmar Dommenget ◽  
Paola Petrelli
Keyword(s):  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Solar Constant ◽  
Surface Temperatures ◽  
Co2 Concentrations ◽  
Land Surface Temperatures ◽  
Intercomparison Project

Abstract. General circulation models (GCMs) are routinely run under Atmospheric Modelling Intercomparison Project (AMIP) conditions with prescribed sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea ice concentrations (SICs) from observations. These AMIP simulations are often used to evaluate the role of the land and/or atmosphere in causing the development of systematic errors in such GCMs. Extensions to the original AMIP experiment have also been developed to evaluate the response of the global climate to increased SSTs (prescribed) and carbon-dioxide (CO2) as part of the Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP). None of these international modelling initiatives has undertaken a set of experiments where the land conditions are also prescribed, which is the focus of the work presented in this paper. Experiments are performed initially with freely varying land conditions (surface temperature and, soil temperature and mositure) under five different configurations (AMIP, AMIP with uniform 4 K added to SSTs, AMIP SST with quadrupled CO2, AMIP SST and quadrupled CO2 without the plant stomata response, and increasing the solar constant by 3.3 %). Then, the land surface temperatures from the free-land experiments are used to perform a set of “AMIP-prescribed land” (PL) simulations, which are evaluated against their free-land counterparts. The PL simulations agree well with the free-land experiments, which indicates that the land surface is prescribed in a way that is consistent with the original free-land configuration. Further experiments are also performed with different combinations of SSTs, CO2 concentrations, solar constant and land conditions. For example, SST and land conditions are used from the AMIP simulation with quadrupled CO2 in order to simulate the atmospheric response to increased CO2 concentrations without the surface temperature changing. The results of all these experiments have been made publicly available for further analysis. The main aims of this paper are to provide a description of the method used and an initial validation of these AMIP-prescribed land experiments.

scholarly journals Annual and semiannual cycles of midlatitude near-surface temperature and tropospheric baroclinicity: reanalysis data and AOGCM simulations

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerio Lembo ◽  
Isabella Bordi ◽  
Antonio Speranza
Keyword(s):  
Surface Temperature ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Relative Phase ◽  
North Pacific Ocean ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Seasonal Forecasts ◽  
Frequency Model ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Annual Frequency

Abstract. Seasonal variability in near-surface air temperature and baroclinicity from the ECMWF ERA-Interim (ERAI) reanalysis and six coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 and 5 (CMIP3 and CMIP5) are examined. In particular, the annual and semiannual cycles of hemispherically averaged fields are studied using spectral analysis. The aim is to assess the ability of coupled general circulation models to properly reproduce the observed amplitude and phase of these cycles, and investigate the relationship between near-surface temperature and baroclinicity (coherency and relative phase) in such frequency bands. The overall results of power spectra agree in displaying a statistically significant peak at the annual frequency in the zonally averaged fields of both hemispheres. The semiannual peak, instead, shows less power and in the NH seems to have a more regional character, as is observed in the North Pacific Ocean region. Results of bivariate analysis for such a region and Southern Hemisphere midlatitudes show some discrepancies between ERAI and model data, as well as among models, especially for the semiannual frequency. Specifically, (i) the coherency at the annual and semiannual frequency observed in the reanalysis data is well represented by models in both hemispheres, and (ii) at the annual frequency, estimates of the relative phase between near-surface temperature and baroclinicity are bounded between about ±15° around an average value of 220° (i.e., approximately 1-month phase shift), while at the semiannual frequency model phases show a wider dispersion in both hemispheres with larger errors in the estimates, denoting increased uncertainty and some disagreement among models. The most recent CMIP climate models (CMIP5) show several improvements when compared with CMIP3, but a degree of discrepancy still persists though masked by the large errors characterizing the semiannual frequency. These findings contribute to better characterizing the cyclic response of current global atmosphere–ocean models to the external (solar) forcing that is of interest for seasonal forecasts.

scholarly journals Hydrological responses to climate change conditioned by historic alterations of land-use and water-use

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 7595-7620 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jarsjö ◽  
S. M. Asokan ◽  
C. Prieto ◽  
A. Bring ◽  
G. Destouni
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Loss ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Aral Sea ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Hydrological Responses ◽  
Irrigation Practices

Abstract. This paper quantifies and conditions expected hydrological responses in the Aral Sea Drainage Basin (ASDB; occupying 1.3 % of the earth's land surface), Central Asia, to multi-model projections of climate change in the region from 20 general circulation models (GCMs). The aim is to investigate how uncertainties of future climate change interact with the effects of historic human re-distributions of water for land irrigation to influence future water fluxes and water resources. So far, historic irrigation changes have greatly amplified water losses by evapotranspiration (ET) in the ASDB, whereas the 20th century climate change has not much affected the regional net water loss to the atmosphere. Projected future climate change (for the period 2010–2039) however is here calculated to considerably increase the net water loss to the atmosphere. Furthermore, the ET response strength to any future temperature change will be further increased by maintained (or increased) irrigation practices. With such irrigation practices, the river runoff is likely to decrease to near-total depletion, with risk for cascading ecological regime shifts in aquatic ecosystems downstream of irrigated land areas. Without irrigation, the agricultural areas of the principal Syr Darya river basin could sustain a 50 % higher temperature increase (of 2.3 °C instead of the projected 1.5 °C until 2010–2039) before yielding the same consumptive ET increase and associated R decrease as with the present irrigation practices.

A new method for assessing the performance of general circulation models based on their ability to simulate the response to observed forcing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-52
Author(s):  
M.A. Altamirano del Carmen ◽  
F. Estrada ◽  
C. Gay-García
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Warming Trend ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Adequate Representation ◽  
Warming Rate

AbstractThe reliability of General Circulation Models (GCMs) is commonly associated with their ability to reproduce relevant aspects of observed climate and thus, the evaluation of GCMs performance has become a standard practice for climate change studies. As such, there is an ever-growing literature that focuses on developing and evaluating metrics to assess GCMs performance. In this paper it is shown that some commonly applied metrics provide little information for discriminating GCMs based on their performance, once uncertainty is included. A new methodology is proposed that differs from common approaches in that it focuses on evaluating GCMs ability to reproduce the observed response of surface temperature to changes in external radiative forcing (RF), while controlling for observed and simulated variability. It uses formal statistical tests to evaluate two aspects of the warming trend that are central for climate change studies: 1) if the response to RF produced by a particular GCM is compatible with observations and 2) if the magnitudes of the observed and simulated rates of warming are statistically similar. We illustrate the proposed methodology by evaluating the ability of 21 GCMs to reproduce the observed warming trend at the global scale and eight sub-continental land domains. Results show that most of the GCMs provide an adequate representation of the observed warming trend for the global scale and for domains located in the southern hemisphere. However, GCMs tend to overestimate the warming rate for domains in the northern hemisphere, particularly since the mid-1990s.

scholarly journals An ensemble of AMIP simulations with prescribed land surface temperatures

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 3865-3881 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Ackerley ◽  
Robin Chadwick ◽  
Dietmar Dommenget ◽  
Paola Petrelli
Keyword(s):  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Solar Constant ◽  
Surface Temperatures ◽  
Co2 Concentrations ◽  
Land Surface Temperatures ◽  
Intercomparison Project

Abstract. General circulation models (GCMs) are routinely run under Atmospheric Modelling Intercomparison Project (AMIP) conditions with prescribed sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea ice concentrations (SICs) from observations. These AMIP simulations are often used to evaluate the role of the land and/or atmosphere in causing the development of systematic errors in such GCMs. Extensions to the original AMIP experiment have also been developed to evaluate the response of the global climate to increased SSTs (prescribed) and carbon dioxide (CO2) as part of the Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP). None of these international modelling initiatives has undertaken a set of experiments where the land conditions are also prescribed, which is the focus of the work presented in this paper. Experiments are performed initially with freely varying land conditions (surface temperature, and soil temperature and moisture) under five different configurations (AMIP, AMIP with uniform 4 K added to SSTs, AMIP SST with quadrupled CO2, AMIP SST and quadrupled CO2 without the plant stomata response, and increasing the solar constant by 3.3 %). Then, the land surface temperatures from the free land experiments are used to perform a set of “AMIP prescribed land” (PL) simulations, which are evaluated against their free land counterparts. The PL simulations agree well with the free land experiments, which indicates that the land surface is prescribed in a way that is consistent with the original free land configuration. Further experiments are also performed with different combinations of SSTs, CO2 concentrations, solar constant and land conditions. For example, SST and land conditions are used from the AMIP simulation with quadrupled CO2 in order to simulate the atmospheric response to increased CO2 concentrations without the surface temperature changing. The results of all these experiments have been made publicly available for further analysis. The main aims of this paper are to provide a description of the method used and an initial validation of these AMIP prescribed land experiments.

scholarly journals Climate versus carbon dioxide controls on biomass burning: a model analysis of the glacial–interglacial contrast

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 6017-6027 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Martin Calvo ◽  
I. C. Prentice ◽  
S. P. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Primary Production ◽  
Biomass Burning ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Co2 Concentration ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Fuel Load ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Dynamic Global Vegetation Model

Abstract. Climate controls fire regimes through its influence on the amount and types of fuel present and their dryness. CO2 concentration constrains primary production by limiting photosynthetic activity in plants. However, although fuel accumulation depends on biomass production, and hence on CO2 concentration, the quantitative relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration and biomass burning is not well understood. Here a fire-enabled dynamic global vegetation model (the Land surface Processes and eXchanges model, LPX) is used to attribute glacial–interglacial changes in biomass burning to an increase in CO2, which would be expected to increase primary production and therefore fuel loads even in the absence of climate change, vs. climate change effects. Four general circulation models provided last glacial maximum (LGM) climate anomalies – that is, differences from the pre-industrial (PI) control climate – from the Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project Phase~2, allowing the construction of four scenarios for LGM climate. Modelled carbon fluxes from biomass burning were corrected for the model's observed prediction biases in contemporary regional average values for biomes. With LGM climate and low CO2 (185 ppm) effects included, the modelled global flux at the LGM was in the range of 1.0–1.4 Pg C year-1, about a third less than that modelled for PI time. LGM climate with pre-industrial CO2 (280 ppm) yielded unrealistic results, with global biomass burning fluxes similar to or even greater than in the pre-industrial climate. It is inferred that a substantial part of the increase in biomass burning after the LGM must be attributed to the effect of increasing CO2 concentration on primary production and fuel load. Today, by analogy, both rising CO2 and global warming must be considered as risk factors for increasing biomass burning. Both effects need to be included in models to project future fire risks.

scholarly journals Intraseasonal Variability in Coupled GCMs: The Roles of Ocean Feedbacks and Model Physics

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (13) ◽  
pp. 4970-4995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte A. DeMott ◽  
Cristiana Stan ◽  
David A. Randall ◽  
Mark D. Branson
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Sensible Heat Flux ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
Surface Fluxes ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Specific Humidity ◽  
Sensible Heat ◽  
Near Surface

The interaction of ocean coupling and model physics in the simulation of the intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) is explored with three general circulation models: the Community Atmospheric Model, versions 3 and 4 (CAM3 and CAM4), and the superparameterized CAM3 (SPCAM3). Each is integrated coupled to an ocean model, and as an atmosphere-only model using sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from the coupled SPCAM3, which simulates a realistic ISO. For each model, the ISO is best simulated with coupling. For each SST boundary condition, the ISO is best simulated in SPCAM3. Near-surface vertical gradients of specific humidity, [Formula: see text] (temperature, [Formula: see text]), explain ~20% (50%) of tropical Indian Ocean latent (sensible) heat flux variance, and somewhat less of west Pacific variance. In turn, local SST anomalies explain ~5% (25%) of [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] variance in coupled simulations, and less in uncoupled simulations. Ergo, latent and sensible heat fluxes are strongly controlled by wind speed fluctuations, which are largest in the coupled simulations, and represent a remote response to coupling. The moisture budget reveals that wind variability in coupled simulations increases east-of-convection midtropospheric moistening via horizontal moisture advection, which influences the direction and duration of ISO propagation. These results motivate a new conceptual model for the role of ocean feedbacks on the ISO. Indian Ocean surface fluxes help developing convection attain a magnitude capable of inducing the circulation anomalies necessary for downstream moistening and propagation. The “processing” of surface fluxes by model physics strongly influences the moistening details, leading to model-dependent responses to coupling.

scholarly journals Biogeophysical feedbacks enhance Arctic terrestrial carbon sink in regional Earth system dynamics

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 6715-6754 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Zhang ◽  
C. Jansson ◽  
P. A. Miller ◽  
B. Smith ◽  
P. Samuelsson
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
C Cycle ◽  
Biogeophysical Feedbacks

Abstract. Continued warming of the Arctic will likely accelerate terrestrial carbon (C) cycling by increasing both uptake and release of C. There are still large uncertainties in modelling Arctic terrestrial ecosystems as a source or sink of C. Most modelling studies assessing or projecting the future fate of C exchange with the atmosphere are based an either stand-alone process-based models or coupled climate–C cycle general circulation models, in either case disregarding biogeophysical feedbacks of land surface changes to the atmosphere. To understand how biogeophysical feedbacks will impact on both climate and C budget over Arctic terrestrial ecosystems, we apply the regional Earth system model RCA-GUESS over the CORDEX-Arctic domain. The model is forced with lateral boundary conditions from an GCMs CMIP5 climate projection under the RCP 8.5 scenario. We perform two simulations with or without interactive vegetation dynamics respectively to assess the impacts of biogeophysical feedbacks. Both simulations indicate that Arctic terrestrial ecosystems will continue to sequester C with an increased uptake rate until 2060s–2070s, after which the C budget will return to a weak C sink as increased soil respiration and biomass burning outpaces increased net primary productivity. The additional C sinks arising from biogeophysical feedbacks are considerable, around 8.5 Gt C, accounting for 22% of the total C sinks, of which 83.5% are located in areas of Arctic tundra. Two opposing feedback mechanisms, mediated by albedo and evapotranspiration changes respectively, contribute to this response. Albedo feedback dominates over winter and spring season, amplifying the near-surface warming by up to 1.35 K in spring, while evapotranspiration feedback dominates over summer exerting the evaporative cooling by up to 0.81 K. Such feedbacks stimulate vegetation growth with an earlier onset of growing-season, leading to compositional changes in woody plants and vegetation redistribution.

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