Ozone depletion, greenhouse gases, and climate change

This symposium was organized to study the unusual convergence of a number of observations, both short and long term that defy an integrated explanation. Of particular importance are surface temperature observations and observations of upper atmospheric temperatures, which have declined significantly in parts of the stratosphere. There has also been a dramatic decline in ozone concentration over Antarctica that was not predicted. Significant changes in precipitation that seem to be latitude dependent have occurred. There has been a threefold increase in methane in the last 100 years; this is a problem because a source does not appear to exist for methane of the right isotopic composition to explain the increase. These and other meteorological global climate changes are examined in detail

Atmospheric conditions during the Arctic Clouds in Summer Experiment (ACSE): Contrasting open-water and sea-ice surfaces during melt and freeze-up seasons

The Arctic Clouds in Summer Experiment (ACSE) was conducted during summer and early autumn 2014, providing a detailed view of the seasonal transition from ice melt into freeze-up. Measurements were taken over both ice-free and ice-covered surfaces near the ice edge, offering insight into the role of the surface state in shaping the atmospheric conditions. The initiation of the autumn freeze-up was related to a change in air mass, rather than to changes in solar radiation alone; the lower atmosphere cooled abruptly, leading to a surface heat loss. During melt season, strong surface inversions persisted over the ice, while elevated inversions were more frequent over open water. These differences disappeared during autumn freeze-up, when elevated inversions persisted over both ice-free and ice-covered conditions. These results are in contrast to previous studies that found a well-mixed boundary layer persisting in summer and an increased frequency of surface-based inversions in autumn, suggesting that knowledge derived from measurements taken within the pan-Arctic area and on the central ice pack does not necessarily apply closer to the ice edge. This study offers an insight into the atmospheric processes that occur during a crucial period of the year; understanding and accurately modeling these processes is essential for the improvement of ice-extent predictions and future Arctic climate projections

The parent?infant dyad and the construction of the subjective self

Developmental psychology and psychopathology has in the past been more concerned with the quality of self-representation than with the development of the subjective agency which underpins our experience of feeling, thought and action, a key function of mentalisation. This review begins by contrasting a Cartesian view of pre-wired introspective subjectivity with a constructionist model based on the assumption of an innate contingency detector which orients the infant towards aspects of the social world that react congruently and in a specifically cued informative manner that expresses and facilitates the assimilation of cultural knowledge. Research on the neural mechanisms associated with mentalisation and social influences on its development are reviewed. It is suggested that the infant focuses on the attachment figure as a source of reliable information about the world. The construction of the sense of a subjective self is then an aspect of acquiring knowledge about the world through the caregiver's pedagogical communicative displays which in this context focuses on the child's thoughts and feelings. We argue that a number of possible mechanisms, including complementary activation of attachment and mentalisation, the disruptive effect of maltreatment on parent-child communication, the biobehavioural overlap of cues for learning and cues for attachment, may have a role in ensuring that the quality of relationship with the caregiver influences the development of the child's experience of thoughts and feelings

Evaluation of water vapor distribution in general circulation models using satellite observations

This paper presents a comparison of the water vapor distribution obtained from two general circulation models, the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model and the National Center for Atmospheric Reseach (NCAR) Community Climate Model (CCM), with satellite observations of total precipitable water (TPW) from SSM/I and upper tropospheric relative humidity (UTH) from GOES. Overall, both models are successful in capturing the primary features of the observed water vapor distribution and its seasonal variation. For the ECMWF model, however, a systematic moist bias in TPW is noted over well‐known stratocumulus regions in the eastern subtropical oceans. Comparison with radiosonde profiles suggests that this problem is attributable to difficulties in modeling the shallowness of the boundary layer and large vertical water vapor gradients which characterize these regions. In comparison, the CCM is more successful in capturing the low values of TPW in the stratocumulus regions, although it tends to exhibit a dry bias over the eastern half of the subtropical oceans and a corresponding moist bias in the western half. The CCM also significantly overestimates the daily variability of the moisture fields in convective regions, suggesting a problem in simulating the temporal nature of moisture transport by deep convection. Comparison of the monthly mean UTH distribution indicates generally larger discrepancies than were noted for TPW owing to the greater influence of large‐scale dynamical processes in determining the distribution of UTH. In particular, the ECMWF model exhibits a distinct dry bias along the ITCZ and a moist bias over the subtropical descending branches of the Hadley cell, suggesting an underprediction in the strength of the Hadley circulation. The CCM, on the other hand, demonstrates greater discrepancies in UTH than are observed for the ECMWF model, but none that are as clearly correlated with well‐known features of the large‐scale circulation

Metadata: A User's View

Abstract: An analysis is presented of the uses of metadata from four aspects of database operations: (1) search, query, retrieval, (2) ingest, quality control, processing, (3) application to application transfer; (4) storage, archive. Typical degrees of database functionality ranging from simple file retrieval to interdisciplinary global query with metadatabase-user dialog and involving many distributed autonomous databases, are ranked in approximate order of increasing sophistication of the required knowledge representation. An architecture is outlined for implementing such functionality in many different disciplinary domains utilizing a variety of off the shelf database management subsystems and processor software, each specialized to a different abstract data model

Upper tropospheric relative humidity from the GOES 6.7 μm channel: Method and climatology for July 1987

This paper presents an analysis of upper tropospheric relative humidity and clouds determined from geostationary satellite observations of the upwelling infrared radiation. The 6.7‐μm channel is located near the center of a strong water vapor absorption band and under clear sky conditions is primarily sensitive to the relative humidity averaged over a depth of atmosphere extending from 200 to 500 mbar. Estimates of the clear sky radiance at 6.7‐μm are obtained by utilizing the local spatial structure of the radiance field at 11‐μm and the correlation between 11‐μm and 6.7‐μm, to discriminate between clear and cloudy pixels. This approach is demonstrated to be more reliable than cloud clearance based solely upon the local spatial structure of the 6.7‐μm channel alone and provides estimates of the clear sky 6.7‐μm brightness temperature for areas 2° × 2° of latitude and longitude which are repeatable from successive images 30 min apart to within approximately 1 K. To facilitate the interpretation of the clear sky brightness temperatures, a simplified model of the radiative transfer at 6.7‐μm is presented. This model, based upon a set of irregularly spaced, strongly absorbing, pressure‐broadened lines, demonstrates that accurate to within approximately 1 K or 10% of the actual relative humidity, the brightness temperature at 6.7‐μm is proportional to the natural logarithm of the appropriate vertical average of the relative humidity divided by the cosine of the viewing zenith angle. Estimates of upper tropospheric water vapor inferred in this way from GOES E observations are presented for July 1987. The geographic distribution reflects many well‐known features of the large‐scale atmospheric circulation. A clear dependence of the greenhouse effect of upper tropospheric water vapor upon the large‐scale dynamics is also demonstrated. Finally, the observed relationship between the upper tropospheric relative humidity and the occurrence of upper tropospheric cloud cover is presented and its implications for the parameterization of clouds in general circulation models are discussed

Interpretation of TOVS water vapor radiances in terms of layer‐average relative humidities: Method and climatology for the upper, middle, and lower troposphere

This study presents an analytical expression, derived from radiative theory, for relating water vapor radiances to layer‐average relative humidities. This “radiance‐to‐humidity transformation” provides a simple, yet reliable, means of interpreting satellite observations of the upwelling radiation in the 6.3‐μm water vapor absorption band in terms of a more familiar water vapor quantity. Despite its simplicity, when compared to detailed radiative transfer calculations of the upper (6.7 μm) tropospheric water vapor radiance, the transformation is demonstrated to be accurate to within ∼1 K. Similar levels of accuracy are found when the transformation is compared to detailed calculations of the middle (7.3 μm) and lower (8.3 μm) tropospheric water vapor radiance, provided that the emission from the underlying surface is taken into account. On the basis of these results, the radiance‐to‐humidity transformation is used to interpret TIROS operational vertical sounder observed water vapor radiances in terms of the relative humidity averaged over deep layers of the upper, middle, and lower troposphere. We then present near‐global maps of the geographic distribution and climatological variations of upper, middle, and lower‐tropospheric humidity for the period 1981–1991. These maps clearly depict the role of the large‐scale circulation in regulating the location and temporal variation of tropospheric water vapor