Some perspectives on the late Quaternary paleoclimate of Beringia

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): Analyses of the modern summer synoptic climatology of Beringia illustrate that the region cannot be treated as a homogenous climatic unit as a result of different circulation controls that operate over the region. GCM (general circulation model) simulations and information from the modern synoptic climatology were used to infer the summer paleosynoptic climatology of the region since the last glacial maximum. ... Variations in these climatic controls offer important implications in assessing the vegetation histories of western Beringia versus eastern Beringia

Climatology of the seasonal precipitation maximum in the western United States

The western United States is characterized by heterogeneous patterns of seasonal precipitation regimes due to the hierarchy of climatic controls that operate at different spatial scales. A climatology of intermonthly precipitation changes, using data from more than 4,000 stations including high-elevation sites, illustrate how different climatic controls explain the spatial distribution of the seasonal precipitation maximum. These results indicate that smaller-scale climatic controls must be considered along with larger-scale ones to explain patterns of spatial climate heterogeneity over mountainous areas. The results also offer important implications for scholars interested in assessing spatial climatic variations of the western United States at different timescales

The International Surface Pressure Databank version 2

The International Surface Pressure Databank (ISPD) is the world's largest collection of global surface and sea-level pressure observations. It was developed by extracting observations from established international archives, through international cooperation with data recovery facilitated by the Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth (ACRE) initiative, and directly by contributing universities, organizations, and countries. The dataset period is currently 1768–2012 and consists of three data components: observations from land stations, marine observing systems, and tropical cyclone best track pressure reports. Version 2 of the ISPD (ISPDv2) was created to be observational input for the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project (20CR) and contains the quality control and assimilation feedback metadata from the 20CR. Since then, it has been used for various general climate and weather studies, and an updated version 3 (ISPDv3) has been used in the ERA-20C reanalysis in connection with the European Reanalysis of Global Climate Observations project (ERA-CLIM). The focus of this paper is on the ISPDv2 and the inclusion of the 20CR feedback metadata. The Research Data Archive at the National Center for Atmospheric Research provides data collection and access for the ISPDv2, and will provide access to future versions

Climatic history of the northeastern United States during the past 3000 years

Many ecosystem processes that influence Earth system feedbacks – vegetation growth, water and nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes – are strongly influenced by multidecadal- to millennial-scale climate variations that cannot be directly observed. Paleoclimate records provide information about these variations, forming the basis of our understanding and modeling of them. Fossil pollen records are abundant in the NE US, but cannot simultaneously provide information about paleoclimate and past vegetation in a modeling context because this leads to circular logic. If pollen data are used to constrain past vegetation changes, then the remaining paleoclimate archives in the northeastern US (NE US) are quite limited. Nonetheless, a growing number of diverse reconstructions have been developed but have not yet been examined together. Here we conduct a systematic review, assessment, and comparison of paleotemperature and paleohydrological proxies from the NE US for the last 3000 years. Regional temperature reconstructions (primarily summer) show a long-term cooling trend (1000 BCE–1700 CE) consistent with hemispheric-scale reconstructions, while hydroclimate data show gradually wetter conditions through the present day. Multiple proxies suggest that a prolonged, widespread drought occurred between 550 and 750 CE. Dry conditions are also evident during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, which was warmer and drier than the Little Ice Age and drier than today. There is some evidence for an acceleration of the longer-term wetting trend in the NE US during the past century; coupled with an abrupt shift from decreasing to increasing temperatures in the past century, these changes could have wide-ranging implications for species distributions, ecosystem dynamics, and extreme weather events. More work is needed to gather paleoclimate data in the NE US to make inter-proxy comparisons and to improve estimates of uncertainty in reconstructions

A genomic catalog of Earth’s microbiomes

The reconstruction of bacterial and archaeal genomes from shotgun metagenomes has enabled insights into the ecology and evolution of environmental and host-associated microbiomes. Here we applied this approach to >10,000 metagenomes collected from diverse habitats covering all of Earth’s continents and oceans, including metagenomes from human and animal hosts, engineered environments, and natural and agricultural soils, to capture extant microbial, metabolic and functional potential. This comprehensive catalog includes 52,515 metagenome-assembled genomes representing 12,556 novel candidate species-level operational taxonomic units spanning 135 phyla. The catalog expands the known phylogenetic diversity of bacteria and archaea by 44% and is broadly available for streamlined comparative analyses, interactive exploration, metabolic modeling and bulk download. We demonstrate the utility of this collection for understanding secondary-metabolite biosynthetic potential and for resolving thousands of new host linkages to uncultivated viruses. This resource underscores the value of genome-centric approaches for revealing genomic properties of uncultivated microorganisms that affect ecosystem processes

Towards a more reliable historical reanalysis: improvements for version 3 of the Twentieth Century Reanalysis system

Historical reanalyses that span more than a century are needed for a wide range of studies, from understanding large‐scale climate trends to diagnosing the impacts of individual historical extreme weather events. The Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) Project is an effort to fill this need. It is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and is facilitated by collaboration with the international Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth initiative. 20CR is the first ensemble of sub‐daily global atmospheric conditions spanning over 100 years. This provides a best estimate of the weather at any given place and time as well as an estimate of its confidence and uncertainty. While extremely useful, version 2c of this dataset (20CRv2c) has several significant issues, including inaccurate estimates of confidence and a global sea level pressure bias in the mid‐19th century. These and other issues can reduce its effectiveness for studies at many spatial and temporal scales. Therefore, the 20CR system underwent a series of developments to generate a significant new version of the reanalysis. The version 3 system (NOAA‐CIRES‐DOE 20CRv3) uses upgraded data assimilation methods including an adaptive inflation algorithm; has a newer, higher‐resolution forecast model that specifies dry air mass; and assimilates a larger set of pressure observations. These changes have improved the ensemble‐based estimates of confidence, removed spin‐up effects in the precipitation fields, and diminished the sea‐level pressure bias. Other improvements include more accurate representations of storm intensity, smaller errors, and large‐scale reductions in model bias. The 20CRv3 system is comprehensively reviewed, focusing on the aspects that have ameliorated issues in 20CRv2c. Despite the many improvements, some challenges remain, including a systematic bias in tropical precipitation and time‐varying biases in southern high‐latitude pressure fields

Drought and Precipitation Fluctuations in the Great Plains during the Late Nineteenth Century

Monthly precipitation data in the Great Plains from the late nineteenth century (1851–1890) were compared with modem analogs. Seasonal precipitation changes were identified since 1858–1877, depending on the amount of data available, and additional droughts were inferred back to 1851. Regional droughts did not clearly fit any cycle. Precipitation during fall and winter was less than 1951–1980 averages during most of the late nineteenth century. Wetter than modern average springs and summers occurred in the mid-1870s to the mid-1880s. Relationships of these conditions to changes in mid-tropospheric circulation are suggested. Results from this study can be used for verification of dendroclimatic reconstructions and assessment of climatic impact on settlement

The great Louisiana hurricane of August 1812

Major hurricanes are prominent meteorological hazards of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts. However, the official modern record of Atlantic basin tropical cyclones starts at 1851, and it does not provide a comprehensive measure of the frequency and magnitude of major hurricanes. Vast amounts of documentary weather data extend back several centuries, but many of these have not yet been fully utilized for hurricane reconstruction. These sources include weather diaries, ship logbooks, ship protests, and newspapers from American, British, and Spanish archives. A coordinated effort, utilizing these historical sources, has reconstructed a major hurricane in August 1812, which is the closest to ever pass by New Orleans, Louisiana, including Hurricane Katrina. The storm became a tropical depression in the Caribbean Sea, passed south of Jamaica as a tropical storm, and then strengthened to hurricane strength in the Gulf of Mexico. It made landfall about 65 km southeast of New Orleans and passed just to the west of the city. Historical storm surge and damage reports indicate it as a major hurricane at landfall. Given that conditions during 1812 include having lower sea level, higher land elevation prior to human-induced subsidence, and more extensive wetlands, a recurrence of such a major hurricane would likely have a greater detrimental societal impact than that of Hurricane Katrina. The 1812 hurricane study provides an example of how historical data can be utilized to reconstruct past hurricanes in a manner that renders them directly comparable with those within our modern record

Historical accounts of the drought and hurricane season of 1860

Spatial patterns of the drought and hurricane tracks were reconstructed for 1860. These reveal a typical La Niña pattern over the conterminous United States that would be analogous to an active Atlantic hurricane season. Precipitation frequency for April through October 1860 was calculated for the conterminous United States from 252 instrumental stations and transformed into percentiles relative to the modern record. These data were supplemented with instrumental and documentary accounts from diarists, newspapers, and ship logbooks, which allow for the rigorous reconstruction and reanalysis of the drought and hurricane season and their impacts on society. Widespread deficits in precipitation were observed in 1860 across a large portion of the central and southern Plains and the southeastern US. A total of nine tropical cyclones were detected in this new analysis, and up to three of those nine were previously unknown. The drought parched many crops from Plains into the southeastern US, but the landfall of three hurricanes within 120 km of New Orleans, Louisiana brought beneficial rainfall to the southeastern US. However, this rainfall came too late in the growing season for crops to recover, and also came with an intense storm surge, inland flooding, and wind damage. Synoptic-scale patterns indicate that high pressure systems centered over the central Plains and northeastern Gulf of Mexico steered the three land-falling US hurricanes into Louisiana and Mississippi. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V