scholarly journals Variations of oxygen-18 in West Siberian precipitation during the last 50 yr

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 29263-29301 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Butzin ◽  
M. Werner ◽  
V. Masson-Delmotte ◽  
C. Risi ◽  
C. Frankenberg ◽  
...  

Abstract. Global warming is associated with large increase in surface air temperature and precipitation in Siberia. Here, we apply the isotope-enhanced atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM5-wiso to investigate the variability of δ18O in West Siberian precipitation and the underlying mechanisms during the last fifty years, and to assess the potential of a recently opened monitoring station in Kourovka (57.04° N, 59.55° E) to successfully track large-scale water cycle and climate change in this area. Our model is constrained to atmospheric reanalysis fields to facilitate the comparison with precipitation δ18O from observations. In Russia, annual-mean model surface temperatures agree within ±1.5 °C with climatological data, while the model tends to overestimate precipitation by 10–20 mm month−1. Simulated precipitation δ18O shows a southwest to northeast decreasing pattern. The simulated annual-mean and seasonal δ18O results are in overall good agreement with observations from 15 Russian stations of the Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation between 1970 and 2009. Annual-mean model results and measurements are highly correlated (r2~0.95) with a root mean square deviation of ±1‰. The model reproduces the seasonal variability of δ18O, which parallels the seasonal cycle of temperature, and the seasonal range from −25‰ in winter to −5‰ in summer. Analysing model results for the extended period 1960–2010, long-term increasing trends in temperature, precipitation and δ18O are detected in western Siberia. During the last 50 yr, winter temperatures have increased by 1.8 °C. Annual-mean precipitation rates have increased by 2–6 mm month−1 50 yr−1. Long-term trends of precipitation δ18O are also positive but at the detection limit (<1‰ 50 yr−1). Regional climate is characterized by strong interannual variability, which in winter is strongly related to the North Atlantic Oscillation. In ECHAM5-wiso, regional temperature is the predominant factor controlling δ18O variations on interannual to decadal time scales with slopes of about 0.5‰ °C−1. Focusing on Kourovka, the simulated evolution of temperature, δ18O and, to a smaller extent, precipitation during the last fifty years is synchronous with model results averaged over entire western Siberia, suggesting that this site will be representative to monitor future isotopic changes this region.

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 5853-5869 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Butzin ◽  
M. Werner ◽  
V. Masson-Delmotte ◽  
C. Risi ◽  
C. Frankenberg ◽  
...  

Abstract. Global warming is associated with large increases in surface air temperature in Siberia. Here, we apply the isotope-enabled atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM5-wiso to explore the potential of water isotope measurements at a recently opened monitoring station in Kourovka (57.04° N, 59.55° E) in order to successfully trace climate change in western Siberia. Our model is constrained to atmospheric reanalysis fields for the period 1957–2013 to facilitate the comparison with observations of δD in total column water vapour from the GOSAT satellite, and with precipitation δ18O measurements from 15 Russian stations of the Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation. The model captures the observed Russian climate within reasonable error margins, and displays the observed isotopic gradients associated with increasing continentality and decreasing meridional temperatures. The model also reproduces the observed seasonal cycle of δ18O, which parallels the seasonal cycle of temperature and ranges from −25 ‰ in winter to −5 ‰ in summer. Investigating West Siberian climate and precipitation δ18O variability during the last 50 years, we find long-term increasing trends in temperature and δ18O, while precipitation trends are uncertain. During the last 50 years, winter temperatures have increased by 1.7 °C. The simulated long-term increase of precipitation δ18O is at the detection limit (<1 ‰ per 50 years) but significant. West Siberian climate is characterized by strong interannual variability, which in winter is strongly related to the North Atlantic Oscillation. In winter, regional temperature is the predominant factor controlling δ18O variations on interannual to decadal timescales with a slope of about 0.5 ‰ °C−1. In summer, the interannual variability of δ18O can be attributed to short-term, regional-scale processes such as evaporation and convective precipitation. This finding suggests that precipitation δ18O has the potential to reveal hydrometeorological regime shifts in western Siberia which are otherwise difficult to identify. Focusing on Kourovka, the simulated evolution of temperature, δ18O and, to a smaller extent, precipitation during the last 50 years is synchronous with model results averaged over all of western Siberia, suggesting that this site will be representative to monitor future isotopic changes in the entire region.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (18) ◽  
pp. 9807-9830 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Gryazin ◽  
C. Risi ◽  
J. Jouzel ◽  
N. Kurita ◽  
J. Worden ◽  
...  

Abstract. We evaluate the isotopic composition of water vapor and precipitation simulated by the LMDZ (Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique-Zoom) GCM (General Circulation Model) over Siberia using several data sets: TES (Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer) and GOSAT (Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite) satellite observations of tropospheric water vapor, GNIP (Global Network for Isotopes in Precipitation) and SNIP (Siberian Network for Isotopes in Precipitation) precipitation networks, and daily, in situ measurements of water vapor and precipitation at the Kourovka site in Western Siberia. LMDZ captures the spatial, seasonal and daily variations reasonably well, but it underestimates humidity (q) in summer and overestimates δD in the vapor and precipitation in all seasons. The performance of LMDZ is put in the context of other isotopic models from the SWING2 (Stable Water Intercomparison Group phase 2) models. There is significant spread among models in the simulation of δD, and of the δD-q relationship. This confirms that δD brings additional information compared to q only. We specifically investigate the added value of water isotopic measurements to interpret the warm and dry bias featured by most GCMs over mid and high latitude continents in summer. The analysis of the slopes in δD-q diagrams and of processes controlling δD and q variations suggests that the cause of the dry bias could be either a problem in the large-scale advection transporting too much dry and warm air from the south, or too strong boundary-layer mixing. However, δD-q diagrams using the available data do not tell the full story. Additional measurements would be needed, or a more sophisticated theoretical framework would need to be developed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (11) ◽  
pp. 3989-4019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siegfried D. Schubert ◽  
Ronald E. Stewart ◽  
Hailan Wang ◽  
Mathew Barlow ◽  
Ernesto H. Berbery ◽  
...  

Abstract Drought affects virtually every region of the world, and potential shifts in its character in a changing climate are a major concern. This article presents a synthesis of current understanding of meteorological drought, with a focus on the large-scale controls on precipitation afforded by sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies, land surface feedbacks, and radiative forcings. The synthesis is primarily based on regionally focused articles submitted to the Global Drought Information System (GDIS) collection together with new results from a suite of atmospheric general circulation model experiments intended to integrate those studies into a coherent view of drought worldwide. On interannual time scales, the preeminence of ENSO as a driver of meteorological drought throughout much of the Americas, eastern Asia, Australia, and the Maritime Continent is now well established, whereas in other regions (e.g., Europe, Africa, and India), the response to ENSO is more ephemeral or nonexistent. Northern Eurasia, central Europe, and central and eastern Canada stand out as regions with few SST-forced impacts on precipitation on interannual time scales. Decadal changes in SST appear to be a major factor in the occurrence of long-term drought, as highlighted by apparent impacts on precipitation of the late 1990s “climate shifts” in the Pacific and Atlantic SST. Key remaining research challenges include (i) better quantification of unforced and forced atmospheric variability as well as land–atmosphere feedbacks, (ii) better understanding of the physical basis for the leading modes of climate variability and their predictability, and (iii) quantification of the relative contributions of internal decadal SST variability and forced climate change to long-term drought.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 497-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuhiro Oshima ◽  
Koto Ogata ◽  
Hotaek Park ◽  
Yoshihiro Tachibana

Abstract. River discharges from Siberia are a large source of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean, whereas the cause of the long-term variation in Siberian discharges is still unclear. The observed river discharges of the Lena in the east and the Ob in the west indicated different relationships in each of the epochs during the past 7 decades. The correlations between the two river discharges were negative during the 1980s to mid-1990s, positive during the mid-1950s to 1960s, and became weak after the mid-1990s. More long-term records of tree-ring-reconstructed discharges have also shown differences in the correlations in each of the epochs. It is noteworthy that the correlations obtained from the reconstructions tend to be negative during the past 2 centuries. Such tendency has also been obtained from precipitations in observations, and in simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) and fully coupled atmosphere–ocean GCMs conducted for the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. The AGCM control simulation further demonstrated that an east–west seesaw pattern of summertime large-scale atmospheric circulation frequently emerges over Siberia as an atmospheric internal variability. This results in an opposite anomaly of precipitation over the Lena and Ob and the negative correlation. Consequently, the summertime atmospheric internal variability in the east–west seesaw pattern over Siberia is a key factor influencing the long-term variation in precipitation and river discharge, i.e., the water cycle in this region.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 871-886 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Casado ◽  
P. Ortega ◽  
V. Masson-Delmotte ◽  
C. Risi ◽  
D. Swingedouw ◽  
...  

Abstract. In mid and high latitudes, the stable isotope ratio in precipitation is driven by changes in temperature, which control atmospheric distillation. This relationship forms the basis for many continental paleoclimatic reconstructions using direct (e.g. ice cores) or indirect (e.g. tree ring cellulose, speleothem calcite) archives of past precipitation. However, the archiving process is inherently biased by intermittency of precipitation. Here, we use two sets of atmospheric reanalyses (NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction) and ERA-interim) to quantify this precipitation intermittency bias, by comparing seasonal (winter and summer) temperatures estimated with and without precipitation weighting. We show that this bias reaches up to 10 °C and has large interannual variability. We then assess the impact of precipitation intermittency on the strength and stability of temporal correlations between seasonal temperatures and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Precipitation weighting reduces the correlation between winter NAO and temperature in some areas (e.g. Québec, South-East USA, East Greenland, East Siberia, Mediterranean sector) but does not alter the main patterns of correlation. The correlations between NAO, δ18O in precipitation, temperature and precipitation weighted temperature are investigated using outputs of an atmospheric general circulation model enabled with stable isotopes and nudged using reanalyses (LMDZiso (Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique Zoom)). In winter, LMDZiso shows similar correlation values between the NAO and both the precipitation weighted temperature and δ18O in precipitation, thus suggesting limited impacts of moisture origin. Correlations of comparable magnitude are obtained for the available observational evidence (GNIP (Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation) and Greenland ice core data). Our findings support the use of archives of past δ18O for NAO reconstructions.


Ocean Science ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Cailleau ◽  
J. Chanut ◽  
J.-M. Lellouche ◽  
B. Levier ◽  
C. Maraldi ◽  
...  

Abstract. The regional ocean operational system remains a key element in downscaling from large scale (global or basin scale) systems to coastal ones. It enables the transition between systems in which the resolution and the resolved physics are quite different. Indeed, coastal applications need a system to predict local high frequency events (inferior to the day) such as storm surges, while deep sea applications need a system to predict large scale lower frequency ocean features. In the framework of the ECOOP project, a regional system for the Iberia-Biscay-Ireland area has been upgraded from an existing V0 version to a V2. This paper focuses on the improvements from the V1 system, for which the physics are close to a large scale basin system, to the V2 for which the physics are more adapted to shelf and coastal issues. Strong developments such as higher regional physics resolution in the NEMO Ocean General Circulation Model for tides, non linear free surface and adapted vertical mixing schemes among others have been implemented in the V2 version. Thus, regional thermal fronts due to tidal mixing now appear in the latest version solution and are quite well positioned. Moreover, simulation of the stratification in shelf areas is also improved in the V2.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 3413-3440 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. P. Maurer ◽  
H. G. Hidalgo

Abstract. Downscaling of climate model data is essential to most impact analysis. We compare two methods of statistical downscaling to produce continuous, gridded time series of precipitation and surface air temperature at a 1/8-degree (approximately 140 km² per grid cell) resolution over the western U.S. We use NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data from 1950–1999 as a surrogate General Circulation Model (GCM). The two methods included are constructed analogues (CA) and a bias correction and spatial downscaling (BCSD), both of which have been shown to be skillful in different settings, and BCSD has been used extensively in hydrologic impact analysis. Both methods use the coarse scale Reanalysis fields of precipitation and temperature as predictors of the corresponding fine scale fields. CA downscales daily large-scale data directly and BCSD downscales monthly data, with a random resampling technique to generate daily values. The methods produce comparable skill in producing downscaled, gridded fields of precipitation and temperatures at a monthly and seasonal level. For daily precipitation, both methods exhibit some skill in reproducing both observed wet and dry extremes and the difference between the methods is not significant, reflecting the general low skill in daily precipitation variability in the reanalysis data. For low temperature extremes, the CA method produces greater downscaling skill than BCSD for fall and winter seasons. For high temperature extremes, CA demonstrates higher skill than BCSD in summer. We find that the choice of most appropriate downscaling technique depends on the variables, seasons, and regions of interest, on the availability of daily data, and whether the day to day correspondence of weather from the GCM needs to be reproduced for some applications. The ability to produce skillful downscaled daily data depends primarily on the ability of the climate model to show daily skill.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1543
Author(s):  
Reinhardt Pinzón ◽  
Noriko N. Ishizaki ◽  
Hidetaka Sasaki ◽  
Tosiyuki Nakaegawa

To simulate the current climate, a 20-year integration of a non-hydrostatic regional climate model (NHRCM) with grid spacing of 5 and 2 km (NHRCM05 and NHRCM02, respectively) was nested within the AGCM. The three models did a similarly good job of simulating surface air temperature, and the spatial horizontal resolution did not affect these statistics. NHRCM02 did a good job of reproducing seasonal variations in surface air temperature. NHRCM05 overestimated annual mean precipitation in the western part of Panama and eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. NHRCM05 is responsible for this overestimation because it is not seen in MRI-AGCM. NHRCM02 simulated annual mean precipitation better than NHRCM05, probably due to a convection-permitting model without a convection scheme, such as the Kain and Fritsch scheme. Therefore, the finer horizontal resolution of NHRCM02 did a better job of replicating the current climatological mean geographical distributions and seasonal changes of surface air temperature and precipitation.


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