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New research, March 26 - April 1, 2018
Posted on 6 April 2018 by Ari Jokimäki
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.
Climate change
2. Uncertainty in projected climate change arising from uncertain fossil-fuel emission factors (open access)
3. Skillful climate forecasts of the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean using model-analogs
Temperature, precipitation, and wind
"A new dataset of integrated and homogenized monthly surface air temperature over global land for the period since 1900 [China Meteorological Administration global Land Surface Air Temperature (CMA-LSAT)] is developed. In total, 14 sources have been collected and integrated into the newly developed dataset, including three global (CRUTEM4, GHCN, and BEST), three regional and eight national sources. Duplicate stations are identified, and those with the higher priority are chosen or spliced. Then, a consistency test and a climate outlier test are conducted to ensure that each station series is quality controlled. Next, two steps are adopted to assure the homogeneity of the station series: (1) homogenized station series in existing national datasets (by National Meteorological Services) are directly integrated into the dataset without any changes (50% of all stations), and (2) the inhomogeneities are detected and adjusted for in the remaining data series using a penalized maximal t test (50% of all stations). Based on the dataset, we re-assess the temperature changes in global and regional areas compared with GHCN-V3 and CRUTEM4, as well as the temperature changes during the three periods of 1900–2014, 1979–2014 and 1998–2014. The best estimates of warming trends and there 95% confidence ranges for 1900–2014 are approximately 0.102 ± 0.006 °C/decade for the whole year, and 0.104 ± 0.009, 0.112 ± 0.007, 0.090 ± 0.006, and 0.092 ± 0.007 °C/decade for the DJF (December, January, February), MAM, JJA, and SON seasons, respectively. MAM saw the most significant warming trend in both 1900–2014 and 1979–2014. For an even shorter and more recent period (1998–2014), MAM, JJA and SON show similar warming trends, while DJF shows opposite trends. The results show that the ability of CMA-LAST for describing the global temperature changes is similar with other existing products, while there are some differences when describing regional temperature changes."
5. Extreme temperature events on Greenland in observations and the MAR regional climate model (open access)
6. Altitude-temporal behaviour of atmospheric ozone, temperature and wind velocity observed at Svalbard
8. A 305-year continuous monthly rainfall series for the island of Ireland (1711–2016) (open access)
9. Origins of the decadal predictability of East Asian land summer monsoon rainfall
11. Precipitation Intensity Changes in the Tropics from Observations and Models
13. An urban-based climatology of winter precipitation in the northeast United States
14. Evaluating SST analyses with independent ocean profile observations
Extreme events
15. 1984 Ivanovo tornado outbreak: Determination of actual tornado tracks with satellite data
16. Tropical cyclogenesis in warm climates simulated by a cloud-system resolving model
17. Simulating seasonal tropical cyclone intensities at landfall along the South China coast
19. On the nonlinearity of spatial scales in extreme weather attribution statements
20. Climate warming enhances snow avalanche risk in the Western Himalayas (open access)
21. Land-cover Change and the “Dust Bowl” Drought in the U.S. Great Plains
"This study uses high-resolution modeling experiments and quantifies an effect of the particular Great Plains land-cover in the 1930s that weakens the southerly moisture flux to the region. This effect lowers the average precipitation, making the Great Plains more susceptible to drought. When drought occurs, the land-cover effect enhances its intensity and prolongs its duration. Results also show that this land-cover effect is comparable in magnitude to the effect of the 1930s large-scale circulation anomaly. Finally, analysis of the relationship of these two effects suggests that while lowering the precipitation must have contributed to the Dust Bowl drought via the 1930s land-cover effect, the initiation of and recovery from that drought would likely result from large-scale circulation changes, either of chaotic origin or resulting from combinations of weak SST anomalies and other forcing."
24. Increasing concurrent drought and heat during the summer maize season in Huang–Huai–Hai Plain, China
25. Projected changes in climate extremes in China in a 1.5 °C warmer world
26. Drought characteristics over China during 1980–2015
27. Modelling serial clustering and inter?annual variability of European winter windstorms based on large?scale drivers (open access)
Forcings and feedbacks
28. The impact of aerosol emissions on the 1.5 °C pathways (open access)
29. The Present and Future of Secondary Organic Aerosol Direct Forcing on Climate
"From clean stages to transport stages (TS) to cumulative stages (CS) in HPEs, surface direct and global radiation sharply diminish, with daily the cumulative sum of radiant exposure reduced by 89% and 56% respectively from clean stages to CSs."
34. Hindcast skill improvement in Climate Forecast System (CFSv2) using modified cloud scheme
35. Relationship between lightning and solar activity for recorded between CE 1392–1877 in Korea
37. The role of sea-ice albedo in the climate of slowly rotating aquaplanets (open access)
Cryosphere
39. Seasonal and regional manifestation of Arctic sea ice loss
"The Arctic Ocean is currently on a fast track towards seasonally ice-free conditions. Although most attention has been on the accelerating summer sea ice decline, large changes are also occurring in winter. This study assesses past, present, and possible future change in regional Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent throughout the year by examining sea ice concentration based on observations back to 1950, including the satellite record since 1979. At present, summer sea ice variability and change dominate in the perennial ice covered Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian, Laptev, and Kara seas, with the East Siberian Sea explaining the largest fraction of September ice loss (22%). Winter variability and change occur in the seasonally ice covered seas further south; the Barents Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, Greenland Sea, and Baffin Bay, with the Barents Sea carrying the largest fraction of loss in March (27%). The distinct regions of summer and winter sea ice variability and loss have generally been consistent since 1950, but appear at present to be in transformation due to the rapid ice loss in all seasons. As regions become seasonally ice-free, future ice loss will be dominated by winter. The Kara Sea appears as the first currently perennial ice covered sea to become ice-free in September. Remaining on currently observed trends, the Arctic shelf seas are estimated to become seasonally ice-free in the 2020s, and the seasonally ice-covered seas further south to become ice-free year-round from the 2050s."
40. Atmospheric influences on the anomalous 2016 Antarctic sea ice decay (open access)
42. Spatio?temporal November and March snowfall trends in the Lake Michigan region
Hydrosphere
"It is shown that the Sahara Desert has expanded significantly over the twentieth century, by 11%–18% depending on the season, and by 10% when defined using annual rainfall."
45. Decadal Shift of NAO-Linked Interannual Sea Level Variability along the US Northeast Coast
Carbon cycle
47. Effects of contemporary land-use and land-cover change on the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems in the United States (open access)
48. Upland grasslands in Northern England were atmospheric carbon sinks regardless of management regimes
Atmospheric and oceanic circulation
50. Collapse of the 2017 Winter Beaufort High: A Response to Thinning Sea Ice?
"The collapse of the Beaufort High during the winter of 2017 was associated with simultaneous 2?sigma sea level pressure, surface wind, and sea ice circulation anomalies in the western Arctic. As the Arctic sea ice continues to thin, such reversals may become more common and impact ocean circulation, sea ice, and biology."
51. Interdecadal variability of the Warm Arctic and Cold Eurasia pattern and its North Atlantic origin
Climate change impacts
Mankind
52. Climate change and pastoralists: perceptions and adaptation in montane Kenya
"All participants reported changes in the amount and distribution of rainfall, fog, temperature and wind for the past 20–30 years; regardless of the mountain or ethnicity. They particularly highlighted the reduction in fog. Meteorological evidence on rainfall, temperature and fog agreed with local perceptions; particularly important was a 60% reduction in hours of fog per year since 1981. Starting farming and shifting to camel herding were the adaptive strategies most commonly mentioned."
53. Climate change adaptation measure on agricultural communities of Dhye in Upper Mustang, Nepal
54. Understanding climate change impacts on water buffalo production through farmers’ perceptions (open access)
55. Climate information? Embedding climate futures within temporalities of California water management
56. The effect of hot days on occupational heat stress in the manufacturing industry: implications for workers’ well-being and productivity (open access)
57. Exertional heat illness incidence and on-site medical team preparedness in warm weather
Biosphere
"Overall, results indicate potential to use satellite NDVI for early warning signals of mortality. Relationships are broadly consistent across inventories, species, and spatial resolutions, although the utility of coarse?scale imagery in the heterogeneous aspen parkland was limited. Longer?term NDVI data and annually remeasured sites with high mortality levels generate the strongest signals, although we still found robust relationships at sites remeasured at a typical 5 year frequency."
59. Evaluation of land surface phenology from VIIRS data using time series of PhenoCam imagery
60. Uniform shrub growth response to June temperature across the North Slope of Alaska (open access)
61. Response of terrestrial evapotranspiration to Earth's greening
62. Ecological shift and resilience in China's lake systems during the last two centuries
63. Background sampling and transferability of species distribution model ensembles under climate change
64. Cidaroids spines facing ocean acidification
65. Ecosystem-based monitoring in the age of rapid climate change and new technologies
Other impacts
67. Future southcentral US wildfire probability due to climate change
Climate change mitigation
68. Pathways to deliberative capacity: the role of the IPCC
69. Optimal carbon taxes for China and implications for power generation, welfare, and the environment
70. Between Scylla and Charybdis: Delayed mitigation narrows the passage between large-scale CDR and high costs (open access)
Energy production
71. The role of large—scale BECCS in the pursuit of the 1.5°C target: an Earth system model perspective (open access)
72. Evaluating the use of biomass energy with carbon capture and storage in low emission scenarios (open access)
Climate change communication
74. Learn to conserve: The effects of in-school energy education on at-home electricity consumption
Other papers
75. Climate change and society in the 15th to 18th centuries
"Overall, research that connects climatic and social histories has suggested that human decisions, political structures, economic arrangements, institutions, and cultures either magnified or mitigated the impact of climate change on the societies of the early modern world."
77. Air quality and human health impacts of grasslands and shrublands in the United States
Palaeoclimatology
80. Climatic signals in stable carbon isotope ratios of Juniper and Oak tree rings from northern Iran
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