scholarly journals HadISDH land surface multi-variable humidity and temperature record for climate monitoring

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 2717-2766
Author(s):  
K. M. Willett ◽  
R. J. H. Dunn ◽  
P. W. Thorne ◽  
S. Bell ◽  
M. de Podesta ◽  
...  

Abstract. HadISDH.2.0.0 is the first gridded, multi-variable humidity and temperature climate-data product that is homogenised and annually updated. It provides physically consistent estimates for specific humidity, vapour pressure, relative humidity, dew point temperature, wet bulb temperature, dew point depression and temperature. It is a monthly-mean gridded (5° by 5°) product with uncertainty estimates that account for spatio-temporal sampling, climatology calculation, homogenisation and irreducible random measurement effects. It provides a unique tool for the monitoring of a variety of humidity-related variables which have different impacts and implications for society. HadISDH.2.0.0 is shown to be in good agreement both with other estimates where they are available, and with theoretical understanding. The dataset is available from 1973 to the present. The theme common to all variables is of a warming world with more water vapour present in the atmosphere. The largest increases in water vapour are found over the tropics and Mediterranean. Over the tropics and high northern latitudes the surface air over land is becoming more saturated. However, despite increasing water vapour over the mid-latitudes and Mediterranean, the surface air over land is becoming less saturated. These observed features may be due to atmospheric circulation changes, land–sea warming disparities and reduced water availability or changed land surface properties.

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1983-2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. M. Willett ◽  
R. J. H. Dunn ◽  
P. W. Thorne ◽  
S. Bell ◽  
M. de Podesta ◽  
...  

Abstract. HadISDH.2.0.0 is the first gridded, multi-variable humidity and temperature in situ observations-only climate-data product that is homogenised and annually updated. It provides physically consistent estimates for specific humidity, vapour pressure, relative humidity, dew point temperature, wet bulb temperature, dew point depression and temperature. It is a monthly mean gridded (5° by 5°) product with uncertainty estimates that account for spatio-temporal sampling, climatology calculation, homogenisation and irreducible random measurement effects. It provides a tool for the long-term monitoring of a variety of humidity-related variables which have different impacts and implications for society. It is also useful for climate model evaluation and reanalyses validation. HadISDH.2.0.0 is shown to be in good agreement both with other estimates and with theoretical understanding. The data set is available from 1973 to the present. The theme common to all variables is of a warming world with more water vapour present in the atmosphere. The largest increases in water vapour are found over the tropics and the Mediterranean. Over the tropics and high northern latitudes the surface air over land is becoming more saturated. However, despite increasing water vapour over the mid-latitudes and Mediterranean, the surface air over land is becoming less saturated. These observed features may be due to atmospheric circulation changes, land–sea warming disparities and reduced water availability or changed land surface properties.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 657-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. M. Willett ◽  
C. N. Williams ◽  
R. J. H. Dunn ◽  
P. W. Thorne ◽  
S. Bell ◽  
...  

Abstract. HadISDH is a near-global land surface specific humidity monitoring product providing monthly means from 1973 onwards over large-scale grids. Presented herein to 2012, annual updates are anticipated. HadISDH is an update to the land component of HadCRUH, utilising the global high-resolution land surface station product HadISD as a basis. HadISD, in turn, uses an updated version of NOAA's Integrated Surface Database. Intensive automated quality control has been undertaken at the individual observation level, as part of HadISD processing. The data have been subsequently run through the pairwise homogenisation algorithm developed for NCDC's US Historical Climatology Network monthly temperature product. For the first time, uncertainty estimates are provided at the grid-box spatial scale and monthly timescale. HadISDH is in good agreement with existing land surface humidity products in periods of overlap, and with both land air and sea surface temperature estimates. Widespread moistening is shown over the 1973–2012 period. The largest moistening signals are over the tropics with drying over the subtropics, supporting other evidence of an intensified hydrological cycle over recent years. Moistening is detectable with high (95%) confidence over large-scale averages for the globe, Northern Hemisphere and tropics, with trends of 0.089 (0.080 to 0.098) g kg−1 per decade, 0.086 (0.075 to 0.097) g kg−1 per decade and 0.133 (0.119 to 0.148) g kg−1 per decade, respectively. These changes are outside the uncertainty range for the large-scale average which is dominated by the spatial coverage component; station and grid-box sampling uncertainty is essentially negligible on large scales. A very small moistening (0.013 (−0.005 to 0.031) g kg−1 per decade) is found in the Southern Hemisphere, but it is not significantly different from zero and uncertainty is large. When globally averaged, 1998 is the moistest year since monitoring began in 1973, closely followed by 2010, two strong El Niño years. The period in between is relatively flat, concurring with previous findings of decreasing relative humidity over land.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 5133-5180 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. M. Willett ◽  
R. J. H. Dunn ◽  
P. W. Thorne ◽  
S. Bell ◽  
M. de Podesta ◽  
...  

Abstract. Presented herein is HadISDH: an annually-updated near-global land-surface specific humidity product providing monthly means from 1973 onwards over large scale grids. HadISDH is an update to the land component of HadCRUH utilising the global high resolution land surface station product HadISD as a basis. HadISD, in turn uses an updated version of NOAA's integrated surface database. Intensive automated quality control has been undertaken at the synoptic level, as part of HadISD processing. The data have been subsequently run through the pairwise homogenisation algorithm developed for NCDC's GHCN Monthly temperature product. Uncertainty estimates including station uncertainty and sampling uncertainty are provided at the gridbox spatial scale and monthly time scale. HadISDH is in good agreement with existing land surface humidity products in periods of overlap. Widespread moistening is shown over the 1973–2011 period. The largest moistening signals are over the tropics with drying over the subtropics, supporting other evidence of an intensified hydrological cycle over recent years. Moistening is detectable with high (95%) confidence over large-scale averages for the globe, Northern Hemisphere and tropics with trends of 0.095 (0.086 to 0.105) g kg−1 per decade, 0.091 (0.08 to 0.103) g kg−1 per decade and 0.147 (0.133 to 0.162) g kg−1 per decade, respectively. No change (0.008 (−0.011 to 0.028) g kg−1 per decade) is detectable in the Southern Hemisphere. When globally averaged, 1998 was the moistest year since records began in 1973, closely followed by 2010, two strong El Niño years.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 719-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. H. Dunn ◽  
Kate M. Willett ◽  
Andrew Ciavarella ◽  
Peter A. Stott

Abstract. We compare the latest observational land surface humidity dataset, HadISDH, with the latest generation of climate models extracted from the CMIP5 archive and the ERA-Interim reanalysis over the period 1973 to present. The globally averaged behaviour of HadISDH and ERA-Interim are very similar in both humidity measures and air temperature, on decadal and interannual timescales. The global average relative humidity shows a gradual increase from 1973 to 2000, followed by a steep decline in recent years. The observed specific humidity shows a steady increase in the global average during the early period but in the later period it remains approximately constant. None of the CMIP5 models or experiments capture the observed behaviour of the relative or specific humidity over the entire study period. When using an atmosphere-only model, driven by observed sea surface temperatures and radiative forcing changes, the behaviour of regional average temperature and specific humidity are better captured, but there is little improvement in the relative humidity. Comparing the observed climatologies with those from historical model runs shows that the models are generally cooler everywhere, are drier and less saturated in the tropics and extra-tropics, and have comparable moisture levels but are more saturated in the high latitudes. The spatial pattern of linear trends is relatively similar between the models and HadISDH for temperature and specific humidity, but there are large differences for relative humidity, with less moistening shown in the models over the tropics and very little at high latitudes. The observed drying in mid-latitudes is present at a much lower magnitude in the CMIP5 models. Relationships between temperature and humidity anomalies (T–q and T–rh) show good agreement for specific humidity between models and observations, and between the models themselves, but much poorer for relative humidity. The T–q correlation from the models is more steeply positive than the observations in all regions, and this over-correlation may be due to missing processes in the models. The observed temporal behaviour appears to be a robust climate feature rather than observational error. It has been previously documented and is theoretically consistent with faster warming rates over land compared to oceans. Thus, the poor replication in the models, especially in the atmosphere-only model, leads to questions over future projections of impacts related to changes in surface relative humidity. It also precludes any formal detection and attribution assessment.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. H. Dunn ◽  
Kate M. Willett ◽  
Andrew Ciavarella ◽  
Peter A. Stott

Abstract. We compare the latest observational land-surface humidity dataset, HadISDH, with the latest generation of climate models extracted from the CMIP5 archive and the ERA-Interim reanalysis over the period 1973 to present. The globally averaged behaviour of HadISDH and ERA-Interim are very similar in both humidity measures and air temperature, at decadal and interannual timescales. The global average relative humidity shows a gradual increase from 1973 to 2000, followed by a steep decline in recent years. The observed specific humidity shows a steady increase in the global average during the early period but in the later period it remains approximately constant. None of the CMIP5 models or experiments capture the observed behaviour of the relative or specific humidity over the entire study period. When using an atmosphere-only model, driven by observed sea-surface temperatures and radiative forcing changes, the behaviour of regional average temperature and specific humidity are better captured, but there is little improvement in the relative humidity. Comparing the observed and historical model climatologies show that the models are generally cooler everywhere, are drier and less saturated in the tropics and extra tropics, and have comparable moisture levels but are more saturated in the high latitudes. The spatial pattern of linear trends are relatively similar between the models and HadISDH for temperature and specific humidity, but there are large differences for relative humidity, with less moistening shown in the models over the Tropics, and very little at high latitudes. The observed drying in mid-latitudes is present at a much lower magnitudes. Relationships between temperature and humidity anomalies (T–q and T–rh) show good agreement for specific humidity between models and observations, and between the models themselves, but much poorer for relative humidity. The T–q correlation from the models is more steeply positive in all regions than the observations, and this over-correlation may be due to missing processes in the models. The observed temporal behaviour appears to be a robust climate feature rather than observational error. It has been previously documented and is theoretically consistent with faster warming rates over land compared to oceans. Thus, the poor replication in the models, especially in the atmosphere only model, leads to questions over future projections of impacts related to changes in surface relative humidity. It also precludes any formal detection and attribution assessment.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 453-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. S. Moreira ◽  
S. R. Freitas ◽  
J. P. Bonatti ◽  
L. M. Mercado ◽  
N. M. É. Rosário ◽  
...  

Abstract. This article presents the development of a new numerical system denominated JULES-CCATT-BRAMS, which resulted from the coupling of the JULES surface model to the CCATT-BRAMS atmospheric chemistry model. The performance of this system in relation to several meteorological variables (wind speed at 10 m, air temperature at 2 m, dew point temperature at 2 m, pressure reduced to mean sea level and 6 h accumulated precipitation) and the CO2 concentration above an extensive area of South America is also presented, focusing on the Amazon basin. The evaluations were conducted for two periods, the wet (March) and dry (September) seasons of 2010. The statistics used to perform the evaluation included bias (BIAS) and root mean squared error (RMSE). The errors were calculated in relation to observations at conventional stations in airports and automatic stations. In addition, CO2 concentrations in the first model level were compared with meteorological tower measurements and vertical CO2 profiles were compared with aircraft data. The results of this study show that the JULES model coupled to CCATT-BRAMS provided a significant gain in performance in the evaluated atmospheric fields relative to those simulated by the LEAF (version 3) surface model originally utilized by CCATT-BRAMS. Simulations of CO2 concentrations in Amazonia and a comparison with observations are also discussed and show that the system presents a gain in performance relative to previous studies. Finally, we discuss a wide range of numerical studies integrating coupled atmospheric, land surface and chemistry processes that could be produced with the system described here. Therefore, this work presents to the scientific community a free tool, with good performance in relation to the observed data and re-analyses, able to produce atmospheric simulations/forecasts at different resolutions, for any period of time and in any region of the globe.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 465-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henning W. Rust ◽  
Tim Kruschke ◽  
Andreas Dobler ◽  
Madlen Fischer ◽  
Uwe Ulbrich

Abstract The Water and Global Change (WATCH) forcing datasets have been created to support the use of hydrological and land surface models for the assessment of the water cycle within climate change studies. They are based on 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) or ECMWF interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim) with temperatures (among other variables) adjusted such that their monthly means match the monthly temperature dataset from the Climatic Research Unit. To this end, daily minimum, maximum, and mean temperatures within one calendar month have been subjected to a correction involving monthly means of the respective month. As these corrections can be largely different for adjacent months, this procedure potentially leads to implausible differences in daily temperatures across the boundaries of calendar months. We analyze day-to-day temperature fluctuations within and across months and find that across-months differences are significantly larger, mostly in the tropics and frigid zones. Average across-months differences in daily mean temperature are typically between 10% and 40% larger than their corresponding within-months average temperature differences. However, regions with differences up to 200% can be found in tropical Africa. Particularly in regions where snowmelt is a relevant player for hydrology, a few degrees Celsius difference can be decisive for triggering this process. Daily maximum and minimum temperatures are affected in the same regions, but in a less severe way.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 4981-5006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Borger ◽  
Matthias Schneider ◽  
Benjamin Ertl ◽  
Frank Hase ◽  
Omaira E. García ◽  
...  

Abstract. Volume mixing ratio water vapour profiles have been retrieved from IASI (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer) spectra using the MUSICA (MUlti-platform remote Sensing of Isotopologues for investigating the Cycle of Atmospheric water) processor. The retrievals are done for IASI observations that coincide with Vaisala RS92 radiosonde measurements performed in the framework of the GCOS (Global Climate Observing System) Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN) in three different climate zones: the tropics (Manus Island, 2° S), mid-latitudes (Lindenberg, 52° N), and polar regions (Sodankylä, 67° N). The retrievals show good sensitivity with respect to the vertical H2O distribution between 1 km above ground and the upper troposphere. Typical DOFS (degrees of freedom for signal) values are about 5.6 for the tropics, 5.1 for summertime mid-latitudes, 3.8 for wintertime mid-latitudes, and 4.4 for summertime polar regions. The errors of the MUSICA IASI water vapour profiles have been theoretically estimated considering the contribution of many different uncertainty sources. For all three climate regions, unrecognized cirrus clouds and uncertainties in atmospheric temperature have been identified as the most important error sources and they can reach about 25 %. The MUSICA IASI water vapour profiles have been compared to 100 individual coincident GRUAN water vapour profiles. The systematic difference between the data is within 11 % below 12 km altitude; however, at higher altitudes the MUSICA IASI data show a dry bias with respect to the GRUAN data of up to 21 %. The scatter is largest close to the surface (30 %), but never exceeds 21 % above 1 km altitude. The comparison study documents that the MUSICA IASI retrieval processor provides H2O profiles that capture the large variations in H2O volume mixing ratio profiles well from 1 km above ground up to altitudes close to the tropopause. Above 5 km the observed scatter with respect to GRUAN data is in reasonable agreement with the combined MUSICA IASI and GRUAN random errors. The increased scatter at lower altitudes might be explained by surface emissivity uncertainties at the summertime continental sites of Lindenberg and Sodankylä, and the upper tropospheric dry bias might suggest deficits in correctly modelling the spectroscopic line shapes of water vapour.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 5515-5552 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Ren ◽  
A. R. MacKenzie ◽  
C. Schiller ◽  
G. Shur ◽  
V. Yushkov

Abstract. We have developed a Lagrangian air-parcel cirrus model (LACM), to diagnose the processes controlling water in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL). LACM applies parameterised microphysics to air parcel trajectories. The parameterisation includes the homogeneous freezing of aerosol droplets, the growth/sublimation of ice particles, and sedimentation of ice particles, so capturing the main dehydration mechanism for air in the TTL. Rehydration is also considered by resetting the water vapour mixing ratio in an air parcel to the value at the point in the 4-D analysis/forecast data used to generate the trajectories, but only when certain conditions, indicative of convection, are satisfied. These conditions are imposed to confine what processes contribute to rehydration. The conditions act to restrict rehydration of the Lagrangian air parcels to regions where convective transport of water vapour from below is significant, at least to the extent that the analysis/forecast captures this process. The inclusion of hydration and dehydration mechanisms in LACM results in total water fields near tropical convection that have more of the "stripey" character of satellite observations of high cloud, than do either the ECMWF analysis or trajectories without microphysics. The mixing ratios of total water in the TTL, measured by a high-altitude aircraft over Brazil (during the TROCCINOX campaign), have been reconstructed by LACM using trajectories generated from ECMWF analysis. Two other Lagrangian reconstructions are also tested: linear interpolation of ECMWF analysed specific humidity onto the aircraft flight track, and instantaneous dehydration to the saturation vapour pressure over ice along trajectories. The reconstructed total water mixing ratios along aircraft flight tracks are compared with observations from the FISH total water hygrometer. Process-oriented analysis shows that modelled cirrus cloud events are responsible for dehydrating the air parcels coming from lower levels, resulting in total water mixing ratios as low as 2 μmol/mol. Without adding water back to some of the trajectories, the LACM and instantaneous-dehydration reconstructions have a dry bias. The interpolated-ECMWF reconstruction does not suffer this dry bias, because convection in the ECMWF model moistens air parcels dramatically, by pumping moist air upwards. This indicates that the ECMWF model captures the gross features of the rehydration of air in the TTL by convection. Overall, the ECMWF models captures well the exponential decrease in total water mixing ratio with height above 250 hPa, so that all the reconstruction techniques capture more than 75% of the variance in the measured total water mixing ratios over the depth of the TTL. We have therefore developed a simple method for re-setting the total water in LACM using the ECMWF-analysed specific humidity in regions where the model predicts convection. By picking up the main contributing processes to dehydration and rehydration in the TTL, LACM reconstructs total water mixing ratios along aircraft flight tracks at the top of the TTL, close to the cold point, that are always in substantially better agreement with observations than instantaneous-dehydration reconstructions, and better than the ECMWF analysis for regions of high relative humidity and cloud.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1256
Author(s):  
Jan El Kassar ◽  
Cintia Carbajal Henken ◽  
Rene Preusker ◽  
Jürgen Fischer

A new algorithm for the retrieval of day-time total column water vapour (TCWV) from measurements of a MSG-SEVIRI (Meteosat Second Generation Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager) instrument is presented. The retrieval is based on a forward operator, at the core of which lies Radiative Transfer for TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (RTTOV). This forward model relates TCWV and surface temperature to brightness temperatures in the split window at 11 and 12µm with the use of a first guess for temperature and humidity profiles from the ERA5 reanalysis. The forward model is then embedded in a full Optimal Estimation (OE) method, which yields pixel by pixel uncertainty estimates and performance indicators. The algorithm is applicable to any instrument which features the split window configuration, given a first guess for atmospheric conditions (i.e., from NWP) and an estimate of surface emissivity at 11 µm. The algorithm was developed within the framework of RealPEP (Near-Realtime Quantitative Precipitation Estimation and Prediction) in which the advancement of the estimation and nowcasting of extreme precipitation and flooding in Germany are studied. Thus, processing and validation has been limited to the German domain. Three independent ground-based TCWV observation data sets were used as reference, i.e., AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network), GNSS Germany (Global Navigation Satellite System) and measurements from two MWR (Microwave Radiometer) sites. The validation concludes with good agreement, with absolute biases between 0.11 and 2.85 kg/m2, root mean square deviations (rmsds) between 1.63 and 3.24 kg/m2 and Pearson correlation coefficients ranging from 0.96 to 0.98. The retrievals uncertainty estimates were evaluated against AERONET. The comparison suggests that, in sum, uncertainties are estimated well, while still some error sources seem to be over- and underestimated. In limited case studies it could be shown that SEVIRI TCWV is capable to both display large scale variabilities in water vapour fields and reproduce the daily course of water vapour exposed by ground-based observations.


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