WET TROPOSPHERIC CORRECTION’S IMPACT ON SEA LEVEL ANOMALY AROUND THE INDONESIAN SEAS

Global sea level rise in the satellite altimetry era is about 3 mm/yr. The one of main source of uncertainty of global sea level is the wet tropospheric from onboard microwave radiometer which is up to 0.3 mm/yr.  The focus of this study is to assess of various wet tropospheric correction impact on sea level anomaly in the Indonesian seas. The result of sea level anomaly linear trend difference between Global Navigation Satellite System and Microwave Radio Meter or ECMWF Re-Analysis Interim is 0.18 mm/yr in agreement with the global wet tropospheric uncertainty

Oceanic and terrestrial sources of continental precipitation

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Reviews of Geophysics 50 (2012): RG4003, doi:10.1029/2012RG000389.The most important sources of atmospheric moisture at the global scale are herein identified, both oceanic and terrestrial, and a characterization is made of how continental regions are influenced by water from different moisture source regions. The methods used to establish source-sink relationships of atmospheric water vapor are reviewed, and the advantages and caveats associated with each technique are discussed. The methods described include analytical and box models, numerical water vapor tracers, and physical water vapor tracers (isotopes). In particular, consideration is given to the wide range of recently developed Lagrangian techniques suitable both for evaluating the origin of water that falls during extreme precipitation events and for establishing climatologies of moisture source-sink relationships. As far as oceanic sources are concerned, the important role of the subtropical northern Atlantic Ocean provides moisture for precipitation to the largest continental area, extending from Mexico to parts of Eurasia, and even to the South American continent during the Northern Hemisphere winter. In contrast, the influence of the southern Indian Ocean and North Pacific Ocean sources extends only over smaller continental areas. The South Pacific and the Indian Ocean represent the principal source of moisture for both Australia and Indonesia. Some landmasses only receive moisture from the evaporation that occurs in the same hemisphere (e.g., northern Europe and eastern North America), while others receive moisture from both hemispheres with large seasonal variations (e.g., northern South America). The monsoonal regimes in India, tropical Africa, and North America are provided with moisture from a large number of regions, highlighting the complexities of the global patterns of precipitation. Some very important contributions are also seen from relatively small areas of ocean, such as the Mediterranean Basin (important for Europe and North Africa) and the Red Sea, which provides water for a large area between the Gulf of Guinea and Indochina (summer) and between the African Great Lakes and Asia (winter). The geographical regions of Eurasia, North and South America, and Africa, and also the internationally important basins of the Mississippi, Amazon, Congo, and Yangtze Rivers, are also considered, as is the importance of terrestrial sources in monsoonal regimes. The role of atmospheric rivers, and particularly their relationship with extreme events, is discussed. Droughts can be caused by the reduced supply of water vapor from oceanic moisture source regions. Some of the implications of climate change for the hydrological cycle are also reviewed, including changes in water vapor concentrations, precipitation, soil moisture, and aridity. It is important to achieve a combined diagnosis of moisture sources using all available information, including stable water isotope measurements. A summary is given of the major research questions that remain unanswered, including (1) the lack of a full understanding of how moisture sources influence precipitation isotopes; (2) the stationarity of moisture sources over long periods; (3) the way in which possible changes in intensity (where evaporation exceeds precipitation to a greater of lesser degree), and the locations of the sources, (could) affect the distribution of continental precipitation in a changing climate; and (4) the role played by the main modes of climate variability, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation or the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, in the variability of the moisture source regions, as well as a full evaluation of the moisture transported by low-level jets and atmospheric rivers.Luis Gimeno would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Science and FEDER for their partial funding of this research through the project MSM. A. Stohl was supported by the Norwegian Research Council within the framework of the WATER‐SIP project. The work of Ricardo Trigo was partially supported by the FCT (Portugal) through the ENAC project (PTDC/AAC-CLI/103567/2008).2013-05-0

Internet of Things for Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change

Our world is vulnerable to climate change risks such as glacier retreat, rising temperatures, more variable and intense weather events (e.g., floods, droughts, and frosts), deteriorating mountain ecosystems, soil degradation, and increasing water scarcity. However, there are big gaps in our understanding of changes in regional climate and how these changes will impact human and natural systems, making it difficult to anticipate, plan, and adapt to the coming changes. The IoT paradigm in this area can enhance our understanding of regional climate by using technology solutions, while providing the dynamic climate elements based on integrated environmental sensing and communications that is necessary to support climate change impacts assessments in each of the related areas (e.g., environmental quality and monitoring, sustainable energy, agricultural systems, cultural preservation, and sustainable mining). In the IoT in Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change chapter, a framework for informed creation, interpretation and use of climate change projections and for continued innovations in climate and environmental science driven by key societal and economic stakeholders is presented. In addition, the IoT cyberinfrastructure to support the development of continued innovations in climate and environmental science is discussed

Energy-Water Balance and Ecosystem Response to Climate Change in Southwest China

It is important to highlight energy-water balance and ecosystem response to climate changes. The change of water-energy balance and ecosystem due to climate change will affect the regional ecological and human living significantly, especially in Southwest China which is an ecologically fragile area. This chapter presents the retrieval methodology of parameters (reconstruction of vegetation index, land cover semi-automatic classification, a time series reconstruction of land surface temperature based on Kalman filter and precipitation interpolation based on thin plate smoothing splines), time-series analysis methodology (land cover change, vegetation succession and drought index) and correlate analysis methodology (correlation coefficient and principal component analysis). Then, based on the above method, remote sensing data were integrated, a time series analysis on a 30-year data was used to illustrate the water-energy balance and ecosystem variability in Southwest China. The result showed that energy-water balance and ecosystem (ecosystem structures, vegetation and droughts) have severe response to climate change

Applying Advanced Ground-Based Remote Sensing in the Southeast Asian Maritime Continent to Characterize Regional Proficiencies in Smoke Transport Modeling

This work describes some of the most extensive ground-based observations of the aerosol profile collected in Southeast Asia to date, highlighting the challenges in simulating these observations with amesoscale perspective. An 84-hWRFModel coupled with chemistry (WRF-Chem)mesoscale simulation of smoke particle transport at Kuching, Malaysia, in the southern Maritime Continent of Southeast Asia is evaluated relative to a unique collection of continuous ground-based lidar, sun photometer, and 4-h radiosonde profiling. The period was marked by relatively dry conditions, allowing smoke layers transported to the site unperturbed by wet deposition to be common regionally. The model depiction is reasonable overall. Core thermodynamics, including land/seabreeze structure, are well resolved. Total model smoke extinction and, by proxy, mass concentration are low relative to observation. Smoke emissions source products are likely low because of undersampling of fires in infrared sun-synchronous satellite products, which is exacerbated regionally by endemic low-level cloud cover. Differences are identified between the model mass profile and the lidar profile, particularly during periods of afternoon convective mixing. A static smoke mass injection height parameterized for this study potentially influences this result. The model does not resolve the convective mixing of aerosol particles into the lower free troposphere or the enhancement of near-surface extinction from nighttime cooling and hygroscopic effects

Examining Atmospheric and Ecological Drivers of Wildfires, Modeling Wildfire Occurrence in the Southwest United States, and Using Atmospheric Sounding Observations to Verify National Weather Service Spot Forecasts

This dissertation is comprised of three different papers that all pertain to wildland fire applications. The first paper performs a verification analysis on mixing height, transport winds, and Haines Index from National Weather Service spot forecasts across the United States. The final two papers, which are closely related, examine atmospheric and ecological drivers of wildfire for the Southwest Area (SWA) (Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas, and Oklahoma panhandle) to better equip operational fire meteorologists and managers to make informed decisions on wildfire potential in this region. The verification analysis here utilizes NWS spot forecasts of mixing height, transport winds and Haines Index from 2009-2013 issued for a location within 50 km of an upper sounding location and valid for the day of the fire event. Mixing height was calculated from the 0000 UTC sounding via the Stull, Holzworth, and Richardson methods. Transport wind speeds were determined by averaging the wind speed through the boundary layer as determined by the three mixing height methods from the 0000 UTC sounding. Haines Index was calculated at low, mid, and high elevation based on the elevation of the sounding and spot forecast locations. Mixing height forecasts exhibited large mean absolute errors and biased towards over forecasting. Forecasts of transport wind speeds and Haines Index outperformed mixing height forecasts with smaller errors relative to their respective means. The rainfall and lightning associated with the North American Monsoon (NAM) can vary greatly intra- and inter-annually and has a large impact on wildfire activity across the SWA by igniting or suppressing wildfires. NAM onset thresholds and subsequent dates are determined for the SWA and each Predictive Service Area (PSA), which are sub-regions used by operational fire meteorologists to predict wildfire potential within the SWA, April through September from 1995-2013. Various wildfire activity thresholds using the number of wildfires and large wildfires identified days or time periods with increased wildfire activity for each PSA and the SWA. Self-organizing maps utilizing 500 and 700 hPa geopotential heights and precipitable water were implemented to identify atmospheric patterns contributing to the NAM onset and busy days/periods for each PSA and the SWA. Resulting SOM map types also showed the transition to, during, and from the NAM. Northward and eastward displacements of the subtropical ridge (i.e., four-corners high) over the SWA were associated with NAM onset, and a suppressed subtropical ridge and breakdown of the subtropical ridge map types over the SWA were associated with increased wildfire activity. We implemented boosted regression trees (BRT) to model wildfire occurrence for all and large wildfires for different wildfire types (i.e., lightning, human) across the SWA by PSA. BRT models for all wildfires demonstrated relatively small mean and mean absolute errors and showed better predictability on days with wildfires. Cross-validated accuracy assessments for large wildfires demonstrated the ability to discriminate between large wildfire and non-large wildfire days across all wildfire types. Measurements describing fuel conditions (i.e., 100 and 1000-hour dead fuel moisture, energy release component) were the most important predictors when considering all wildfire types and sizes. However, a combination of fuels and atmospheric predictors (i.e., lightning, temperature) proved most predictive for large wildfire occurrence, and the number of relevant predictors increases for large wildfires indicating more conditions need to align to support large wildfires

CIRA annual report FY 2017/2018

Reporting period April 1, 2017-March 31, 2018

[Arctic] Greenland ice sheet [in “State of the Climate in 2012”]

Melting at the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet set new records for extent and melt index (i.e., the number of days on which melting occurred multiplied by the area where melting was detected) for the period 1979–2012, according to passive microwave observations (e.g., Tedesco 2007, 2009; Mote and Anderson 1995). Melt extent reached ~97% of the ice sheet surface during a rare, ice-sheet-wide event on 11–12 July (Fig. 5.13a; Nghiem et al. 2012). This was almost four times greater than the average melt extent for 1981–2010. The 2012 standardized melting index (SMI, defined as the melting index minus its average and divided by its standard deviation) was +2.4, almost twice the previous record of about +1.3 set in 2010

Examining the impacts of convective environments on storms using observations and numerical models

2022 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Convective clouds are significant contributors to both weather and climate. While the basic environments supporting convective clouds are broadly known, there is currently no unifying theory on how joint variations in different environmental properties impact convective cloud properties. The overaching goal of this research is to assess the response of convective clouds to changes in the dynamic, thermodynamic and aerosol properties of the local environment. To achieve our goal, two tools for examining convective cloud properties and their environments are first described, developed and enhanced. This is followed by an examination of the response of convective clouds to changes in the dynamic, thermodynamic and aerosol properties using these enhanced tools. In the first study comprising this dissertation, we assess the performance of small temperature, pressure, and humidity sensors onboard drones used to sample convective environments and convective cloud outflows by comparing them to measurements made from a tethersonde platform suspended at the same height. Using 82 total drone flights, including nine at night, the following determinations about sensor accuracy are made. First, when examining temperature, the nighttime flight temperature errors are found to have a smaller range than the daytime temperature errors, indicating that much of the daytime error arises from exposure to solar radiation. The pressure errors demonstrate a strong dependence on horizontal wind speed with all of the error distributions being multimodal in high wind conditions. Finally, dewpoint temperature errors are found to be larger than temperature errors. We conclude that measurements in field campaigns are more accurate when sensors are placed away from the drone's main body and associated propeller wash and are sufficiently aspirated and shielded from incoming solar radiation. The Tracking and Object-Based Analysis of Clouds (tobac) tracking package is a commonly used tracking package in atmospheric science that allows for tracking of atmospheric phenomena on any variable and on any grid. We have enhanced the tobac tracking package to enable it to be used on more atmospheric phenomena, with a wider variety of atmospheric data and across more diverse platforms than before. New scientific improvements (three spatial dimensions and an internal spectral filtering tool) and procedural improvements (enhanced computational efficiency, internal re-gridding of data, and treatments for periodic boundary conditions) comprising this new version of tobac (v1.5) are described in the second study of this dissertation. These improvements have made tobac one of the most robust, powerful, and flexible identification and tracking tools in our field and expanded its potential use in other fields. In the third study of this dissertation, we examine the relationship between the thermodynamic and dynamic environmental properties and deep convective clouds forming in the tropical atmosphere. To elucidate this relationship, we employ a high-resolution, long-duration, large-area numerical model simulation alongside tobac to build a database of convective clouds and their environments. With this database, we examine differences in the initial environment associated with individual storm strength, organization, and morphology. We find that storm strength, defined here as maximum midlevel updraft velocity, is controlled primarily by Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) and Precipitable Water (PW); high CAPE (>2500 J kg-1) and high PW (approximately 63 mm) are both required for midlevel CCC updraft velocities to reach at least 10 m s-1. Of the CCCs with the most vigorous updrafts, 80.9% are in the upper tercile of precipitation rates, with the strongest precipitation rates requiring even higher PW. Furthermore, vertical wind shear is the primary differentiator between organized and isolated convective storms. Within the set of organized storms, we also find that linearly-oriented CCC systems have significantly weaker vertical wind shear than nonlinear CCCs in low- (0-1 km, 0-3 km) and mid-levels (0-5 km, 2-7 km). Overall, these results provide new insights into the joint environmental conditions determining the CCC properties in the tropical atmosphere. Finally, in the fourth study of this dissertation, we build upon the third study by examining the relationship between the aerosol environment and convective precipitation using the same simulations and tracking approaches as in the third study. As the environmental aerosol concentrations are increased, the total domain-wide precipitation decreases (-3.4%). Despite the overall decrease in precipitation, the number of tracked terminal congestus clouds increases (+8%), while the number of tracked cumulonimbus clouds is decreased (-1.26%). This increase in the number of congestus clouds is accompanied by an overall weakening in their rainfall as aerosol concentration increases, with a decrease in overall rain rates and an increase in the number of clouds that do not precipitate (+10.7%). As aerosol particles increase, overall cloud droplet size gets smaller, suppressing the initial generation of rain and leading to clouds evaporating due to entrainment before they are able to precipitate