Human influence strengthens the contrast between tropical wet and dry regions

Climate models predict a strengthening contrast between wet and dry regions in the tropics and subtropics (30&#176;S-30&#176;N), and data from the latest model intercomparison project (CMIP6) support this expectation. Rainfall in ascending regions increases, and in descending regions decreases in both climate model and reanalysis data. This strengthening contrast can be captured by tracking rainfall change each month in the wettest and driest third of the tropics and subtropics combined. Since wet and dry regions are selected individually for each model ensemble member, and the observations, and for each month, this analysis is largely unaffected by biases in location of precipitation features. Blended satellite and in situ data support the model-simulated tendency to sharpening contrasts between wet and dry regions, with rainfall in wet regions increasing substantially contrasted by a slight decrease in dry regions. These new datasets allow us to detect with more confidence the effect of external forcings on these changes, attribute them for the first time to the response to anthropogenic and natural forcings separately, and determine that the observed trends are statistically larger than the model responses. Our results show that the observed change is best explained by increasing greenhouse gases with natural forcing contributing some increase following the drop in wet region precipitation after Mount Pinatubo, while anthropogenic aerosol effects are expected to show a weak tropic-wide trend at the present time of flat global aerosol forcing. As expected from climate models, the observed signal strengthens further when focusing on the wet tail of spatial distributions in both models and data.

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Quantifying stochastic uncertainty in detection time of human-caused climate signals

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1904586116 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 116 (40) ◽

pp. 19821-19827 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Benjamin D. Santer ◽

John C. Fyfe ◽

Susan Solomon ◽

Jeffrey F. Painter ◽

Céline Bonfils ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Signal Detection ◽

Climate Sensitivity ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Model Simulation ◽

Detection Time ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽

Stochastic Uncertainty ◽

Aerosol Forcing ◽

Stratospheric Cooling

Large initial condition ensembles of a climate model simulation provide many different realizations of internal variability noise superimposed on an externally forced signal. They have been used to estimate signal emergence time at individual grid points, but are rarely employed to identify global fingerprints of human influence. Here we analyze 50- and 40-member ensembles performed with 2 climate models; each was run with combined human and natural forcings. We apply a pattern-based method to determine signal detection time td in individual ensemble members. Distributions of td are characterized by the median td{m} and range td{r}, computed for tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures over 1979 to 2018. Lower stratospheric cooling—primarily caused by ozone depletion—yields td{m} values between 1994 and 1996, depending on model ensemble, domain (global or hemispheric), and type of noise data. For greenhouse-gas–driven tropospheric warming, larger noise and slower recovery from the 1991 Pinatubo eruption lead to later signal detection (between 1997 and 2003). The stochastic uncertainty td{r} is greater for tropospheric warming (8 to 15 y) than for stratospheric cooling (1 to 3 y). In the ensemble generated by a high climate sensitivity model with low anthropogenic aerosol forcing, simulated tropospheric warming is larger than observed; detection times for tropospheric warming signals in satellite data are within td{r} ranges in 60% of all cases. The corresponding number is 88% for the second ensemble, which was produced by a model with even higher climate sensitivity but with large aerosol-induced cooling. Whether the latter result is physically plausible will require concerted efforts to reduce significant uncertainties in aerosol forcing.

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Weaker cooling by aerosols due to dust–pollution interactions

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-20-15285-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (23) ◽

pp. 15285-15295

Author(s):

Klaus Klingmüller ◽

Vlassis A. Karydis ◽

Sara Bacer ◽

Georgiy L. Stenchikov ◽

Jos Lelieveld

Keyword(s):

Atmospheric Chemistry ◽

Climate Model ◽

Cloud Condensation Nuclei ◽

Radiative Effect ◽

Dust Pollution ◽

Aerosol Composition ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽

Aerosol Forcing ◽

Condensed Water ◽

Chemical Ageing

Abstract. The interactions between aeolian dust and anthropogenic air pollution, notably chemical ageing of mineral dust and coagulation of dust and pollution particles, modify the atmospheric aerosol composition and burden. Since the aerosol particles can act as cloud condensation nuclei, this affects the radiative transfer not only directly via aerosol–radiation interactions, but also indirectly through cloud adjustments. We study both radiative effects using the global ECHAM/MESSy atmospheric chemistry-climate model (EMAC) which combines the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) with the European Centre/Hamburg (ECHAM) climate model. Our simulations show that dust–pollution–cloud interactions reduce the condensed water path and hence the reflection of solar radiation. The associated climate warming outweighs the cooling that the dust–pollution interactions exert through the direct radiative effect. In total, this results in a net warming by dust–pollution interactions which moderates the negative global anthropogenic aerosol forcing at the top of the atmosphere by (0.2 ± 0.1) W m−2.

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Improving the simulation of global aerosol with size-segregated anthropogenic number emissions

10.5194/acp-2017-841 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Filippo Xausa ◽

Pauli Paasonen ◽

Risto Makkonen ◽

Mikhail Arshinov ◽

Aijun Ding ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Particle Number ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Dominant Role ◽

Particle Diameter ◽

Radiation Budget ◽

Size Distributions ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽

Accumulation Mode ◽

Climate Interactions

Abstract. Climate models are important tools that are used for generating climate change projections, in which aerosol-climate interactions are one of the main sources of uncertainties. In order to quantify aerosol-radiation and aerosol-cloud interactions, detailed input of anthropogenic aerosol number emissions is necessary. However, the anthropogenic aerosol number emissions are usually converted from the corresponding mass emissions in precompiled emission inventories through a very simplistic method depending uniquely on chemical composition, particle size and density, which are defined for a few very wide main source sectors. In this work, the anthropogenic particle number emissions converted from the AeroCom mass in the ECHAM-HAM climate model were replaced with the recently-formulated number emissions from the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS)-model, where the emission number size distributions vary, for example, with respect to the fuel and technology. A special attention in our analysis was put on accumulation mode particles (particle diameter dp > 100 nm) because of (i) their capability of acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), thus forming cloud droplets and affecting Earth's radiation budget, and (ii) their dominant role in forming the coagulation sink and thus limiting the concentration of sub-100 nanometers particles. In addition, the estimates of anthropogenic CCN formation, and thus the forcing from aerosol-climate interactions are expected to be affected. Analysis of global particle number concentrations and size distributions reveal that GAINS implementation increases CCN concentration compared with AeroCom, with regional enhancement factors reaching values as high as 10. A comparison between modeled and observed concentrations shows that the increase in number concentration for accumulation mode particle agrees well with measurements, but it leads to a consistent underestimation of both nucleation mode and Aitken mode (dp > 100 nm) particle number concentrations. This suggests that revisions are needed in the new particle formation and growth schemes currently applied in global modeling frameworks.

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Impact of heterogeneous chemistry on the distribution of Glyoxal and Methylglyoxal in the troposphere

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-10780 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ramiro Checa-Garcia ◽

Didier Didier Hauglustaine ◽

Yves Balkanski ◽

Paola Formenti

Keyword(s):

Atmospheric Chemistry ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Experimental Simulation ◽

Heterogeneous Chemistry ◽

Closed Set ◽

Sensitivity Studies ◽

The Tropics

Glyoxal (GL) and methylglyoxal (MGL) are the smallest di-carbonyls present in the atmosphere. They hydrate easily, a process that is followed by an oligomerisation. As a consequence, it is considered that they participate actively in the formation of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) and therefore, they are being introduced in the current climate models with interactive chemistry to assess their importance on atmospheric chemistry. In our study we present the introduction of glyoxal in the INCA global model. A new closed set of gas-phase&#160; reactions is analysed first with a box model. Then the simulated global distribution of glyoxal by the global climate model is compared with satellite observations. We show that the oxidation of volatile organic compounds and acetylene, together with the photolysis of more complex di-carbonyls allows us to reproduce well glyoxal seasonal cycle in the tropics but it requires an additional sink in several northern hemispheric regions. Additional sensitivity studies are being conducted by introducing &#160;GL and MGL interactions with dust and SOA according to new uptake &#160;coefficients obtained by dedicated experiments in the CESAM instrument (Chamber of Experimental Simulation of Atmospheric Multiphases). The effects of these heterogeneous chemistry processes will be quantified in the light of the new chamber measurements &#160;and also evaluated in terms of optical properties of aged dust aerosol &#160;and the changes in direct radiative effects &#160;of the involved aerosol species.

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Net effect of the QBO in a chemistry climate model

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-8-6505-2008 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 8 (21) ◽

pp. 6505-6525 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

H. J. Punge ◽

M. A. Giorgetta

Keyword(s):

General Circulation ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Middle Atmosphere ◽

Meridional Circulation ◽

Vortex Formation ◽

General Circulation Models ◽

Quasi Biennial Oscillation ◽

The Mean ◽

The Tropics

Abstract. The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) of zonal wind is a prominent mode of variability in the tropical stratosphere. It affects not only the meridional circulation and temperature over a wide latitude range but also the transport and chemistry of trace gases such as ozone. Compared to a QBO less circulation, the long-term climatological means of these quantities are also different. These climatological net effects of the QBO can be studied in general circulation models that extend into the middle atmosphere and have a chemistry and transport component, so-called Chemistry Climate Models (CCMs). In this work we show that the CCM MAECHAM4-CHEM can reproduce the observed QBO variations in temperature and ozone mole fractions when nudged towards observed winds. In particular, it is shown that the QBO signal in transport of nitrogen oxides NOx plays an important role in reproducing the observed ozone QBO, which features a phase reversal slightly below the level of maximum of the ozone mole fraction in the tropics. We then compare two 20-year experiments with the MAECHAM4-CHEM model that differ by including or not including the QBO. The mean wind fields differ between the two model runs, especially during summer and fall seasons in both hemispheres. The differences in the wind field lead to differences in the meridional circulation, by the same mechanism that causes the QBO's secondary meridional circulation, and thereby affect mean temperatures and the mean transport of tracers. In the tropics, the net effect on ozone is mostly due to net differences in upwelling and, higher up, the associated temperature change. We show that a net surplus of up to 15% in NOx in the tropics above 10 hPa in the experiment that includes the QBO does not lead to significantly different volume mixing ratios of ozone. We also note a slight increase in the southern vortex strength as well as earlier vortex formation in northern winter. Polar temperatures differ accordingly. Differences in the strength of the Brewer-Dobson circulation and in further trace gas concentrations are analysed. Our findings underline the importance of a representation of the QBO in CCMs.

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Influence of parallel computational uncertainty on simulations of the Coupled General Climate Model

Geoscientific Model Development ◽

10.5194/gmd-5-313-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 313-319 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Z. Song ◽

F. Qiao ◽

X. Lei ◽

C. Wang

Keyword(s):

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Quality Standard ◽

Ensemble Member ◽

Climate System ◽

Climate System Model ◽

Climate Simulations ◽

Computational Uncertainty ◽

The Impact ◽

General Climate

Abstract. This paper investigates the impact of the parallel computational uncertainty due to the round-off error on climate simulations using the Community Climate System Model Version 3 (CCSM3). A series of sensitivity experiments have been conducted and the analyses are focused on the Global and Nino3.4 average sea surface temperatures (SST). For the monthly time series, it is shown that the amplitude of the deviation induced by the parallel computational uncertainty is the same order as that of the climate system change. However, the ensemble mean method can reduce the influence and the ensemble member number of 15 is enough to ignore the uncertainty. For climatology, the influence can be ignored when the climatological mean is calculated by using more than 30-yr simulations. It is also found that the parallel computational uncertainty has no distinguishable effect on power spectrum analysis of climate variability such as ENSO. Finally, it is suggested that the influence of the parallel computational uncertainty on Coupled General Climate Models (CGCMs) can be a quality standard or a metric for developing CGCMs.

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Reply to “Comment on ‘Rethinking the Lower Bound on Aerosol Radiative Forcing’”

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-17-0034.1 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 30 (16) ◽

pp. 6585-6589 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Bjorn Stevens ◽

Stephanie Fiedler

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Lower Bound ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Climate Models ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosols ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽

Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽

Clear Sky ◽

The North ◽

Aerosol Forcing

Kretzschmar et al., in a comment in 2017, use the spread in the output of aerosol–climate models to argue that the models refute the hypothesis (presented in a paper by Stevens in 2015) that for the mid-twentieth-century warming to be consistent with observations, then the present-day aerosol forcing, [Formula: see text] must be less negative than −1 W m−2. The main point of contention is the nature of the relationship between global SO2 emissions and [Formula: see text] In contrast to the concave (log-linear) relationship used by Stevens and in earlier studies, whereby [Formula: see text] becomes progressively less sensitive to SO2 emissions, some models suggest a convex relationship, which would imply a less negative lower bound. The model that best exemplifies this difference, and that is most clearly in conflict with the hypothesis of Stevens, does so because of an implausible aerosol response to the initial rise in anthropogenic aerosol precursor emissions in East and South Asia—already in 1975 this model’s clear-sky reflectance from anthropogenic aerosol over the North Pacific exceeds present-day estimates of the clear-sky reflectance by the total aerosol. The authors perform experiments using a new (observationally constrained) climatology of anthropogenic aerosols to further show that the effects of changing patterns of aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions during the late twentieth century have, for the same global emissions, relatively little effect on [Formula: see text] These findings suggest that the behavior Kretzschmar et al. identify as being in conflict with the lower bound in Stevens arises from an implausible relationship between SO2 emissions and [Formula: see text] and thus provides little basis for revising this lower bound.

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Black Carbon Increases Frequency of Extreme ENSO Events

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-19-0549.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 32 (23) ◽

pp. 8323-8333 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Sijia Lou ◽

Yang Yang ◽

Hailong Wang ◽

Jian Lu ◽

Steven J. Smith ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Carbon ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Southern Oscillation ◽

Global Climate ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Co2 Concentration ◽

Enso Events ◽

Aerosol Forcing ◽

Earth’S Climate

ABSTRACT El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the leading mode of Earth’s climate variability at interannual time scales with profound ecological and societal impacts, and it is projected to intensify in many climate models as the climate warms under the forcing of increasing CO2 concentration. Since the preindustrial era, black carbon (BC) emissions have substantially increased in the Northern Hemisphere. But how BC aerosol forcing may influence the occurrence of the extreme ENSO events has rarely been investigated. In this study, using simulations of a global climate model, we show that increases in BC emissions from both the midlatitudes and Arctic weaken latitudinal temperature gradients and northward heat transport, decrease tropical energy divergence, and increase sea surface temperature over the tropical oceans, with a surprising consequential increase in the frequency of extreme ENSO events. A corollary of this study is that reducing BC emissions might serve to mitigate the possible increasing frequency of extreme ENSO events under greenhouse warming, if the modeling result can be translated into the climate in reality.

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Air–Sea Turbulent Heat Fluxes in Climate Models and Observational Analyses: What Drives Their Variability?

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-18-0576.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 32 (8) ◽

pp. 2397-2421 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

R. Justin Small ◽

Frank O. Bryan ◽

Stuart P. Bishop ◽

Robert A. Tomas

Keyword(s):

Heat Flux ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Turbulent Heat Flux ◽

Heat Fluxes ◽

Small Scale ◽

Turbulent Heat ◽

Realistic Representation ◽

Frontal Zones ◽

The Tropics

Abstract A traditional view is that the ocean outside of the tropics responds passively to atmosphere forcing, which implies that air–sea heat fluxes are mainly driven by atmosphere variability. This paper tests this viewpoint using state-of-the-art air–sea turbulent heat flux observational analyses and a climate model run at different resolutions. It is found that in midlatitude ocean frontal zones the variability of air–sea heat fluxes is not predominantly driven by the atmosphere variations but instead is forced by sea surface temperature (SST) variations arising from intrinsic oceanic variability. Meanwhile in most of the tropics and subtropics wind is the dominant driver of heat flux variability, and atmosphere humidity is mainly important in higher latitudes. The predominance of ocean forcing of heat fluxes found in frontal regions occurs on scales of around 700 km or less. Spatially smoothing the data to larger scales results in the traditional atmosphere-driving case, while filtering to retain only small scales of 5° or less leads to ocean forcing of heat fluxes over most of the globe. All observational analyses examined (1° OAFlux; 0.25° J-OFURO3; 0.25° SeaFlux) show this general behavior. A standard resolution (1°) climate model fails to reproduce the midlatitude, small-scale ocean forcing of heat flux: refining the ocean grid to resolve eddies (0.1°) gives a more realistic representation of ocean forcing but the variability of both SST and of heat flux is too high compared to observational analyses.

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Evaluation of a new snow albedo scheme in RACMO2 for the Greenland ice sheet

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-15261 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Christiaan van Dalum ◽

Willem Jan van de Berg ◽

Stef Lhermitte ◽

Michiel van den Broeke

Keyword(s):

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Ice Sheet ◽

Greenland Ice Sheet ◽

Atmospheric Conditions ◽

Surface Mass ◽

Snow Albedo ◽

In Situ Data ◽

Snow And Ice

Snow and ice albedo schemes in present day climate models often lack a sophisticated radiation penetration scheme and are limited to a broadband albedo. In this study, we evaluate a new snow albedo scheme in the regional climate model RACMO2 that uses the two-stream radiative transfer in snow model TARTES and the spectral-to-narrowband albedo module SNOWBAL for the Greenland ice sheet. Additionally, the bare ice albedo parameterization has been updated. The snow and ice albedo output of the updated version of RACMO2, referred to as RACMO2.3p3, is evaluated using PROMICE and K-transect in-situ data and MODIS remote-sensing observations. Generally, the RACMO2.3p3 albedo is in very good agreement with satellite observations, leading to a domain-averaged bias of only -0.012. Some discrepancies are, however, observed for regions close to the ice margin. Compared to the previous iteration RACMO2.3p2, the albedo of RACMO2.3p3 is considerably higher in the bare ice zone during the ablation season, as atmospheric conditions now alter the bare ice albedo. For most other regions, however, the albedo of RACMO2.3p3 is lower due to spectral effects, radiation penetration, snow metamorphism or a delayed firn-ice transition. Furthermore, a white-out effect during cloudy conditions is captured and the snow albedo shows a low sensitivity to low soot concentrations. The surface mass balance of RACMO2.3p3 compares well with observations. Subsurface heating, however, now leads to increased melt and refreezing in south Greenland, changing the snow structure.

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