Clouds, photolysis and regional tropospheric ozone budgets.

We use a three-dimensional chemical transport model to examine the shortwave radiative effects of clouds on the tropospheric ozone budget. In addition to looking at changes in global concentrations as previous studies have done, we examine changes in ozone chemical production and loss caused by clouds and how these vary in different parts of the troposphere. On a global scale, we find that clouds have a modest effect on ozone chemistry, but on a regional scale their role is much more significant, with the size of the response dependent on the region. The largest averaged changes in chemical budgets (±10–14%) are found in the marine troposphere, where cloud optical depths are high. We demonstrate that cloud effects are small on average in the middle troposphere because this is a transition region between reduction and enhancement in photolysis rates. We show that increases in boundary layer ozone due to clouds are driven by large-scale changes in downward ozone transport from higher in the troposphere rather than by decreases in in-situ ozone chemical loss rates. Increases in upper tropospheric ozone are caused by higher production rates due to backscattering of radiation and consequent increases in photolysis rates, mainly J(NO2). The global radiative effect of clouds on isoprene, through decreases of OH in the lower troposphere, is stronger than on ozone. Tropospheric isoprene lifetime increases by 7% when taking clouds into account. We compare the importance of clouds in contributing to uncertainties in the global ozone budget with the role of other radiatively-important factors. The budget is most sensitive to the overhead ozone column, while surface albedo and clouds have smaller effects. However, uncertainty in representing the spatial distribution of clouds may lead to a large sensitivity of the ozone budget components on regional scales

Impact of climate change on tropospheric ozone and its global budgets

International audienceWe present the chemistry-climate model UMCAM in which a relatively detailed tropospheric chemical module has been incorporated into the UK Met Office's Unified Model version 4.5. We obtain good agreements between the modelled ozone/nitrogen species and a range of observations including surface ozone measurements, ozone sonde data, and some aircraft campaigns. Four 2100 calculations assess model responses to projected changes of anthropogenic emissions (SRES A2), climate change (due to doubling CO2), and idealised climate change-associated changes in biogenic emissions (i.e. 50% increase of isoprene emission and doubling emissions of soil-NOx). The global tropospheric ozone burden increases significantly for all the 2100 A2 simulations, with the largest response caused by the increase of anthropogenic emissions. Climate change has diverse impacts on O3 and its budgets through changes in circulation and meteorological variables. Increased water vapour causes a substantial ozone reduction especially in the tropical lower troposphere (>10 ppbv reduction over the tropical ocean). On the other hand, an enhanced stratosphere-troposphere exchange of ozone, which increases by 80% due to doubling CO2, contributes to ozone increases in the extratropical free troposphere which subsequently propagate to the surface. Projected higher temperatures favour ozone chemical production and PAN decomposition which lead to high surface ozone levels in certain regions. Enhanced convection transports ozone precursors more rapidly out of the boundary layer resulting in an increase of ozone production in the free troposphere. Lightning-produced NOx increases by about 22% in the doubled CO2 climate and contributes to ozone production. The response to the increase of isoprene emissions shows that the change of ozone is largely determined by background NOx levels: high NOx environment increases ozone production; isoprene emitting regions with low NOx levels see local ozone decreases, and increase of ozone levels in the remote region due to the influence of PAN chemistry. The calculated ozone changes in response to a 50% increase of isoprene emissions are in the range of between ?8 ppbv to 6 ppbv. Doubling soil-NOx emissions will increase tropospheric ozone considerably, with up to 5 ppbv in source regions

Interannual variability of tropospheric composition:the influence of changes in emissions, meteorology and clouds

We have run a chemistry transport model (CTM) to systematically examine the drivers of interannual variability of tropospheric composition during 1996-2000. This period was characterised by anomalous meteorological conditions associated with the strong El Nino of 1997-1998 and intense wildfires, which produced a large amount of pollution. On a global scale, changing meteorology (winds, temperatures, humidity and clouds) is found to be the most important factor driving interannual variability of NO2 and ozone on the timescales considered. Changes in stratosphere-troposphere exchange, which are largely driven by meteorological variability, are found to play a particularly important role in driving ozone changes. The strong influence of emissions on NO2 and ozone interannual variability is largely confined to areas where intense biomass burning events occur. For CO, interannual variability is almost solely driven by emission changes, while for OH meteorology dominates, with the radiative influence of clouds being a very strong contributor. Through a simple attribution analysis for 1996-2000 we conclude that changing cloudiness drives 25% of the interannual variability of OH over Europe by affecting shortwave radiation. Over Indonesia this figure is as high as 71%. Changes in cloudiness contribute a small but non-negligible amount (up to 6%) to the interannual variability of ozone over Europe and Indonesia. This suggests that future assessments of trends in tropospheric oxidizing capacity should account for interannual variability in cloudiness, a factor neglected in many previous studies

Seasonal and inter-annual variations in Troposphere-to-Stratosphere Transport from the Tropical Tropopause Layer

International audienceIn an earlier study of troposphere-to-stratosphere transport (TST) via the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), we found that the vast majority of air parcels undergoing TST from the base of the TTL enter the extratropical lowermost stratosphere quasi-horizontally and show little or no regional preference with regards to origin in the TTL or entry into the stratosphere. We have since repeated the trajectory calculations - originally limited to a single northern hemisphere winter period - in a variety of months and years to assess how robust our earlier findings are to change of timing. To first order, we find that the main conclusions hold, irrespective of the season, year and phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). We also explore: the distribution of TST between the northern and southern hemispheres; the sensitivity of modelled TST to the definition of the tropopause; and the routes by which air parcels undergo transport exclusively to the stratospheric overworld. Subject to a dynamical definition of the tropopause, we identify a strong bias towards TST in the southern hemisphere, particularly during the northern hemisphere summer. The main difference on switching to the World Meteorological Organization's thermal tropopause definition is that much less TST is modelled in the subtropics and, relative to the dynamical definition, we calculate significantly less transport into the extratropical lowermost stratosphere (ELS) ? an important region with regards to ozone chemistry. In contrast to the rather homogeneous nature of TST into the ELS, we find that transport to the overworld takes place from relatively well-defined regions of the TTL, predominantly above the West Pacific and Indonesia, except for an El Niño period in which most transport takes place from regions above the East Pacific and South America

Ozone Response to Aircraft Emissions: Sensitivity Studies with Two-dimensional Models

Our first intercomparison/assessment of the effects of a proposed high-speed civil transport (HSCT) fleet on the stratosphere is presented. These model calculations should be considered more as sensitivity studies, primarily designed to serve the following purposes: (1) to allow for intercomparison of model predictions; (2) to focus on the range of fleet operations and engine specifications giving minimal environmental impact; and (3) to provide the basis for future assessment studies. The basic scenarios were chosen to be as realistic as possible, using the information available on anticipated developments in technology. They are not to be interpreted as a commitment or goal for environmental acceptability

Ozone loss derived from balloon-borne tracer measurements in the 1999/2000 Arctic winter

Balloon-borne measurements of CFC11 (from the DIRAC in situ gas chromatograph and the DESCARTES grab sampler), ClO and O3 were made during the 1999/2000 Arctic winter as part of the SOLVE-THESEO 2000 campaign, based in Kiruna (Sweden). Here we present the CFC11 data from nine flights and compare them first with data from other instruments which flew during the campaign and then with the vertical distributions calculated by the SLIMCAT 3D CTM. We calculate ozone loss inside the Arctic vortex between late January and early March using the relation between CFC11 and O3 measured on the flights. The peak ozone loss (~1200ppbv) occurs in the 440-470K region in early March in reasonable agreement with other published empirical estimates. There is also a good agreement between ozone losses derived from three balloon tracer data sets used here. The magnitude and vertical distribution of the loss derived from the measurements is in good agreement with the loss calculated from SLIMCAT over Kiruna for the same days

Do sophisticated evolutionary algorithms perform better than simple ones?

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) come in all shapes and sizes. Theoretical investigations focus on simple, bare-bones EAs while applications often use more sophisticated EAs that perform well on the problem at hand. What is often unclear is whether a large degree of algorithm sophistication is necessary, and if so, how much performance is gained by adding complexity to an EA. We address this question by comparing the performance of a wide range of theory-driven EAs, from bare-bones algorithms like the (1+1) EA, a (2+1) GA and simple population-based algorithms to more sophisticated ones like the (1+(λ,λ)) GA and algorithms using fast (heavy-tailed) mutation operators, against sophisticated and highly effective EAs from specific applications. This includes a famous and highly cited Genetic Algorithm for the Multidimensional Knapsack Problem and the Parameterless Population Pyramid for Ising Spin Glasses and MaxSat. While for the Multidimensional Knapsack Problem the sophisticated algorithm performs best, surprisingly, for large Ising and MaxSat instances the simplest algorithm performs best. We also derive conclusions about the usefulness of populations, crossover and fast mutation operators. Empirical results are supported by statistical tests and contrasted against theoretical work in an attempt to link theoretical and empirical results on EAs

Evolution of breeding plumages in birds: A multiple-step pathway to seasonal dichromatism in New World warblers (Aves: Parulidae)

Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Many species of birds show distinctive seasonal breeding and nonbreeding plumages. A number of hypotheses have been proposed for the evolution of this seasonal dichromatism, specifically related to the idea that birds may experience variable levels of sexual selection relative to natural selection throughout the year. However, these hypotheses have not addressed the selective forces that have shaped molt, the underlying mechanism of plumage change. Here, we examined relationships between life-history variation, the evolution of a seasonal molt, and seasonal plumage dichromatism in the New World warblers (Aves: Parulidae), a family with a remarkable diversity of plumage, molt, and life-history strategies. We used phylogenetic comparative methods and path analysis to understand how and why distinctive breeding and nonbreeding plumages evolve in this family. We found that color change alone poorly explains the evolution of patterns of biannual molt evolution in warblers. Instead, molt evolution is better explained by a combination of other life-history factors, especially migration distance and foraging stratum. We found that the evolution of biannual molt and seasonal dichromatism is decoupled, with a biannual molt appearing earlier on the tree, more dispersed across taxa and body regions, and correlating with separate life-history factors than seasonal dichromatism. This result helps explain the apparent paradox of birds that molt biannually but show breeding plumages that are identical to the nonbreeding plumage. We find support for a two-step process for the evolution of distinctive breeding and nonbreeding plumages: That prealternate molt evolves primarily under selection for feather renewal, with seasonal color change sometimes following later. These results reveal how life-history strategies and a birds\u27 environment act upon multiple and separate feather functions to drive the evolution of feather replacement patterns and bird coloration

Constraining magma storage conditions at a restless volcano in the Main Ethiopian Rift using phase equilibria models

This work is a contribution to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded RiftVolc project (NE/L013932/1, Rift volcanism: past, present, and future). W.H., T.A.M., and D.M.P. are supported by and contribute to the NERC Centre for the Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tectonics (COMET). W.H. M.J.S. were supported by a NERC studentships NE/J5000045/1 and NE/K500811/01 respectively.The Main Ethiopian Rift hosts a number of peralkaline volcanic centres, with many showing signs of recent unrest. Due, in part, to the low number of historical eruptions recorded in the region, volcanism in the Main Ethiopian Rift remains understudied relative to other volcanic settings and conditions of magma storage remain almost entirely unknown. Aluto is one of these restless caldera systems and identifying magma storage conditions is vital for evaluating the risks posed by recent periods of unrest. In this study, we ran ~ 150 fractional crystallisation models, using the Rhyolite-MELTS thermodynamic software, within the range P = 50–300 MPa, starting H2O = 0.5–3 wt% and fO2 = QFM-2 − QFM + 1. This represents a realistic range of potential magma storage conditions at Aluto. We assessed the fractionation trends produced using two different starting compositions, which represent different estimates of the parental melt feeding the system. The predicted liquid lines of descent produced by these models are compared with Aluto whole-rock data from the literature, and are presented along with new observations of the natural phase assemblage and erupted mineral compositions to provide information on the magma storage conditions. Using a new, quantitative statistical approach to compare empirical data and thermodynamic model-outputs, we find that the compositions of evolved peralkaline rhyolites from Aluto are best reproduced by isobaric fractional crystallisation from a rift-related basaltic composition, without the need for significant crustal assimilation. Around 90% protracted fractional crystallisation is required to produce these compositions. This indicates that the magmatic system is likely to exist as a highly crystalline mush. The best agreement between models and natural samples is at low pressures (150 MPa), low initial H2O concentrations (0.5 wt%) and relatively high oxygen fugacity (QFM). The depth of magma storage derived from these results (~ 5.6 ± 1 km) agrees well with the source depths modelled from measured ground deformation at Aluto in 2008. Data from other peralkaline volcanic centres in the Main Ethiopian Rift, such as Boset and Gedemsa, and at other locations globally (e.g. Pantelleria, Italy) suggest that these storage conditions are a common feature of many peralkaline volcanic centres. Our data is consistent with the formation of a Daly Gap at Aluto due to compositional stratification of the magma reservoir beneath the caldera, and the non-linear relationship between temperature and SiO2 concentration during magmatic differentiation.PostprintPeer reviewe

Using δ13C-CH4 and δD-CH4 to constrain Arctic methane emissions

We present a global methane modelling study assessing the sensitivity of Arctic atmospheric CH4 mole fractions, δ13C-CH4 and δD-CH4 to uncertainties in Arctic methane sources. Model simulations include methane tracers tagged by source and isotopic composition and are compared with atmospheric data at four northern high-latitude measurement sites. We find the model's ability to capture the magnitude and phase of observed seasonal cycles of CH4 mixing ratios, δ13C-CH4 and δD-CH4 at northern high latitudes is much improved using a later spring kick-off and autumn decline in northern high-latitude wetland emissions than predicted by most process models. Results from our model simulations indicate that recent predictions of large methane emissions from thawing submarine permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf region could only be reconciled with global-scale atmospheric observations by making large adjustments to high-latitude anthropogenic or wetland emission inventories