The global atmospheric electrical circuit and climate

Evidence is emerging for physical links among clouds, global temperatures, the global atmospheric electrical circuit and cosmic ray ionisation. The global circuit extends throughout the atmosphere from the planetary surface to the lower layers of the ionosphere. Cosmic rays are the principal source of atmospheric ions away from the continental boundary layer: the ions formed permit a vertical conduction current to flow in the fair weather part of the global circuit. Through the (inverse) solar modulation of cosmic rays, the resulting columnar ionisation changes may allow the global circuit to convey a solar influence to meteorological phenomena of the lower atmosphere. Electrical effects on non-thunderstorm clouds have been proposed to occur via the ion-assisted formation of ultra-fine aerosol, which can grow to sizes able to act as cloud condensation nuclei, or through the increased ice nucleation capability of charged aerosols. Even small atmospheric electrical modulations on the aerosol size distribution can affect cloud properties and modify the radiative balance of the atmosphere, through changes communicated globally by the atmospheric electrical circuit. Despite a long history of work in related areas of geophysics, the direct and inverse relationships between the global circuit and global climate remain largely quantitatively unexplored. From reviewing atmospheric electrical measurements made over two centuries and possible paleoclimate proxies, global atmospheric electrical circuit variability should be expected on many timescale

Assessing precipitation concentration in the Amazon basin from different satellite‐based data sets

Daily precipitation concentration in the Amazon basin (AB) is characterized using concentration index (CI), which is computed from HYBAM Observed Precipitation (HOP) data set, for 1980–2009 period. The ability of four satellite precipitation data sets (TMPA V7, TMPA RT, CMORPH and PERSIANN) to estimate CI is evaluated for 2001–2009 period. Our findings provide new information about the spatial irregularity of daily rainfall distribution over the AB. In addition, the spatial distribution of CI values is not completely explained by rainfall seasonality, which highlights the influence of different weather systems over the AB. The results of rainfall concentration indicate that the distribution of daily rainfall is more regular over northwest (northern Peru) and central Andes. Conversely, Roraima region and a large area of Bolivian Amazon register the highest irregularity in the daily rainfall. Bolivian Amazon also represents regions where the large percentage of total rainfall arises from extreme events (>90th percentile). Heavy rainfall episodes over Roraima region are induced by humidity influx come from Caribbean region, while heavy rainfall events over Bolivian Amazon and Andes region are induced by the northwards propagation of cold and dry air along both sides of Andes Mountains, but only propagate in all tropospheric levels for the Andes. The results also show that PERSIANN and TMPA7 data sets better estimates the daily precipitation concentration for whole AB, but with a relative error 8%. CI estimated from satellites does not agree well with HOP over the Andes and northern Peruvian Amazon. On the other hand, the temporal variability of CI can partly be detected using CMORPH and TMPAV7 data sets over the Peruvian Andes, and central and southern Brazil. Errors in CI estimating might be related to inaccurate estimation of daily rainfall. Finally, we conclude that satellite‐based precipitation data sets are useful for analysing rainfall concentration in some regions of AB

Historic Drought from archives : Beyond the Instrumental Record

International audienceThis chapter aims at studying European historic droughts from archives extracted in several European country within the EU project DROUGHT-R&SPI (Fostering European Drought Research and Science-Policy Interfacing). In a first part, we present textual and rare instrumental data recorded in the archives since the 16th century by discriminating private diaries, municipal chronicles, meteorological journals, religious processions ‘for the rain’ and rare instrumental data. Then, this chapter addresses the methodological issue by proposing to use simultaneously textual description and a new Historical Severity Drought scale. Then we study different very extreme droughts occurred in Britain, Ile de France (around Paris) and in the valley of the Upper Rhine between the 16th century and the 2000s. Finally, we approach the social issue by questioning the interest of a European cultural risk memory interest in the prospect of a better resilience of our modern societies facing such a climatic threat