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New research, September 18-24, 2017

Posted on 29 September 2017 by Ari Jokimäki

A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. The graphic is from Lamsal et al. (paper #32).

Climate change

1. Inconsistent subsurface and deeper ocean warming signals during recent global warming and hiatus

"In general, the global SDO has sequestered a significant amount of heat – about 3.50*1022 joules with trends of 0.59 W m−2 on average among the four datasets – during the recent hiatus, demonstrating widespread and significant warming signals in the global SDO." (SDO = Subsurface and Deeper Ocean.)

2. Enhanced Decadal Warming of the Southeast Indian Ocean during the Recent Global Surface Warming Slowdown

"The rapid Indian Ocean warming during the early-21th century was a major heat sink for the recent global surface warming slowdown. Analysis of observational data and ocean model experiments reveals that during 2003-2012 more than half of the increased upper Indian Ocean heat content was concentrated in the southeast Indian Ocean (SEIO), causing a warming “hotspot” of 0.8-1.2 K decade-1 near the west coast of Australia." ... "Large-ensemble climate model simulations suggest that this warming event was likely also exacerbated by anthropogenic forcing and thus unprecedentedly strong as compared to previous IPO transition periods."

3. Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C

"If CO2 emissions are continuously adjusted over time to limit 2100 warming to 1.5°C, with ambitious non-CO2 mitigation, net future cumulative CO2 emissions are unlikely to prove less than 250GtC and unlikely greater than 540GtC. Hence, limiting warming to 1.5°C is not yet a geophysical impossibility, but is likely to require delivery on strengthened pledges for 2030 followed by challengingly deep and rapid mitigation."

4. More-Persistent Weak Stratospheric Polar Vortex States Linked to Cold Extremes

"Using hierarchical clustering, we show that over the last 37 years, the frequency of weak vortex states in mid to late winter (January and February) has increased which were accompanied by subsequent cold extremes in mid-latitude Eurasia. For this region 60% of the observed cooling in the era of Arctic amplification, i.e. since 1990, can be explained by the increased frequency of weak stratospheric polar vortex states, a number which increases to almost 80% when El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability is included as well."

5. Climatic and synoptic characterization of heat waves in Brazil

"The performed analysis reveals the existence of positive and significant trends in HW frequency since the 1980s, particularly for the cities of São Paulo, Manaus, and Recife."

6. Roles of wind stress and thermodynamic forcing in recent trends in Antarctic sea ice and Southern Ocean SST: An ocean-sea ice model study

"The results suggest that Antarctic sea ice expansion is mostly explained by trends in the thermodynamic surface forcing, notably cooling and drying and a reduction in longwave radiation. Similarly, thermodynamic forcing is found to be the main driver of the zonal SST cooling trend. While apparently less influential on sea ice extent and SST, wind stress plays a key role in sea ice motion, thickening coastal sea ice, and thinning and decreasing the concentration of ice in mid-pack regions of the Amundsen-eastern Ross seas and 65–95°E in winter-spring."

7. CO2-Induced Ocean Warming of the Antarctic Continental Shelf in an Eddying Global Climate Model

8. Impacts of recent warming and the 2015/16 El Niño on tropical Peruvian ice fields

9. Fingerprints of Sea-Level Rise on Changing Tides in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays

10. Hydrological drought in the Anthropocene: impacts of local water extraction and reservoir regulation in the US

11. Are simulated and observed 20th century tropical Pacific sea surface temperature trends significant relative to internal variability?

12. Driving Roles of Tropospheric and Stratospheric Thermal Anomalies in Intensification and Persistence of the Arctic Superstorm in 2012

13. The role of microbes in snowmelt and radiative forcing on an Alaskan icefield

14. Multi-decadal weakening of Indian summer monsoon circulation induces an increasing northern Indian Ocean sea level

15. Global budget of tropospheric ozone: Evaluating recent model advances with satellite (OMI), aircraft (IAGOS), and ozonesonde observations

16. A Madden-Julian Oscillation event remotely accelerates ocean upwelling to abruptly terminate the 1997/1998 super El Niño

17. Methods and model dependency of extreme event attribution: The 2015 European drought

18. Variability and quasi-decadal changes in the methane budget over the period 2000–2012

19. Warming and wetting climate during last century revealed by an ice core in northwest Tibetan Plateau

20. Deep Uncertainty Surrounding Coastal Flood Risk Projections: A Case Study for New Orleans

21. Which temperature and precipitation extremes best explain the variation of warm vs. cold years and wet vs. dry years?

22. Relative humidity has uneven effects onshifts from snow to rain over the Western U.S.

23. Long-term warming trends in Korea and contribution of urbanization: An updated assessment

24. Post-stagnation retreat of Kamb Ice Stream's grounding zone

25. Structure and evolution of the drainage system of a Himalayan debris-covered glacier, and its relationship with patterns of mass loss

26. Impacts of 1.5 and 2 °C global warming on water availability and extreme hydrological events in Yiluo and Beijiang River catchments in China

27. The influence of flow and bed slope on gas transfer in steep streams and their implications for evasion of CO2

28. A Source-Receptor Perspective on the Polar Hydrologic Cycle: Sources, Seasonality, and Arctic-Antarctic Parity in the Hydrologic Cycle Response to CO2-Doubling

29. Is there a role for human-induced climate change in the precipitation decline that drove the California drought?

30. The Impact of Climate Change on Hazardous Convective Weather in the United States: Insight from High-Resolution Dynamical Downscaling

31. Tropical ocean contributions to California’s surprisingly dry El Niño of 2015-16

Climate change impacts

32. The greening of the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau under climate change

"Highlights

• Climatic suitability of the nine Himalayan tree-line species will expand towards higher elevation into areas that are currently unsuitable.

• The total climatic suitable areas will increase in the future compared to the current period.
• High elevation belts will see more climatic suitability.
• Cold stress is the main limiting factor for the current and future distribution of the investigated species."

33. Adaptation to climate change and freshwater resources in Vusama village, Viti Levu, Fiji

"In particular, prolonged drought and changing seasonal patterns, together with people’s increasing reliance on a village borehole in lieu of family wells have resulted in a freshwater crisis. People are coping by using earnings from wage employment and harvesting and selling seafood to buy water and vegetables, rationing freshwater and depending on extended social networks for fresh produce."

34. Vulnerability of specialty crops to short-term climatic variability and adaptation strategies in the Midwestern USA

"Our results indicate that weather-induced losses vary by state with excessive moisture resulting in the highest total number of claims across all Midwestern states followed by freeze and drought events. Overall, specialty crop growers are aware of the increased production risk under a changing climate and have identified the need for crop-specific weather, production, and financial risk management tools and increased crop insurance coverage."

35. Soil microbial communities drive the resistance of ecosystem multifunctionality to global change in drylands across the globe

36. Increased resource use efficiency amplifies positive response of aquatic primary production to experimental warming

37. Quick release of internal water storage in a glacier leads to underestimation of the hazard potential of glacial lake outburst floods from Lake Merzbacher in central Tian shan Mountains

38. Staying in place during times of change in Arctic Alaska: the implications of attachment, alternatives, and buffering

39. Plant resistance to drought depends on timely stomatal closure

40. The relative importance of subjective and structural factors for individual adaptation to climate change by forest owners in Sweden

41. Ecological performance of construction materials subject to ocean climate change

42. Climate variability affects the germination strategies exhibited by arid land plants

43. Winter warming effects on tundra shrub performance are species-specific and dependent on spring conditions

44. Effects of shrub and tree cover increase on the near-surface atmosphere in northern Fennoscandia

45. Significance of direct and indirect impacts of climate change on groundwater resources in the Olifants River basin: A review

46. Complex effect of projected sea temperature and wind change on flatfish dispersal

Climate change mitigation

47. The potential of behavioural change for climate change mitigation: a case study for the European Union

"Our results indicate that modest to rigorous behavioural change could reduce per capita footprint emissions by 6 to 16%, out of which one fourth will take place outside the EU, predominantly by reducing land use change. The domestic emission savings would contribute to reduce the costs of achieving the internationally agreed climate goal of the EU by 13.5 to 30%. Moreover, many of these options would also yield co-benefits such as monetary savings, positive health impacts or animal wellbeing."

48. For wind turbines in complex terrain, the devil is in the detail

"We find that the mean wind, wind shear and turbulence level are extremely sensitive to the exact details of the terrain: a small modification of the edge of our scale model, results in a reduction of the estimated annual energy production by at least 50% and an increase in the turbulence level by a factor of five in the worst-case scenario with the most unfavorable wind direction."

49. Making sense of climate engineering: a focus group study of lay publics in four countries

"With few exceptions, participants largely expressed negative views of large-scale deliberate intervention in climate systems as a means to address anthropogenic global warming."

50. Are the impacts of land use on warming underestimated in climate policy? 

51. Cultural multilevel selection suggests neither large or small cooperative agreements are likely to solve climate change without changing the game

52. Carbon tax effects on the poor: a SAM-based approach

53. Global assessment of shipping emissions in 2015 on a high spatial and temporal resolution

54. Greedy or needy? Land use and climate impacts of food in 2050 under different livestock futures

55. Roadmaps to Transition Countries to 100% Clean, Renewable Energy for All Purposes to Curtail Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Risk

56. Climate mitigation by dairy intensification depends on intensive use of spared grassland

57. The presidential politics of climate discourse: Energy frames, policy, and political tactics from the 2016 Primaries in the United States

58. Past and future carbon sequestration benefits of China’s grain for green program

59. What policies improve forest cover? A systematic review of research from Mesoamerica

Other papers

60. Synchronous volcanic eruptions and abrupt climate change ∼17.7 ka plausibly linked by stratospheric ozone depletion

"Rather than a coincidence, we postulate that halogen-catalyzed stratospheric ozone depletion over Antarctica triggered large-scale atmospheric circulation and hydroclimate changes similar to the modern Antarctic ozone hole, explaining the synchronicity and abruptness of accelerated Southern Hemisphere deglaciation."

61. Atmospheric methane control mechanisms during the early Holocene

62. Spatial distribution of the atmospheric radionuclide production by Galactic cosmic rays and its imprint in natural archives

63. Special issue on earth observation of essential climate variables

64. Solar signal on regional scale: A study of possible solar impact upon Romania's climate

65. Influence of solar variability on the occurrence of central European weather types from 1763 to 2009

66. Can measurements of the near-infrared solar spectral irradiance be reconciled? A new ground-based assessment between 4000-10000 cm-1

67. Sensitivity of the Greenland Ice Sheet to interglacial climate forcing: MIS 5e versus MIS 11

68. Characterizing Sources of Uncertainty from Global Climate Models and Downscaling Techniques

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Comments

Comments 1 to 2:

  1. How do you keep up with it?  Thank you for the effort.

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  2. Thanks! I use a RSS feed reader where I have included new paper feeds of about 90 journals.

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