Assessment of sea ice-atmosphere links in CMIP5 models

© 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. The Arctic is currently undergoing drastic changes in climate, largely thought to be due to so-called ‘Arctic amplification’, whereby local feedbacks enhance global warming. Recently, a number of observational and modelling studies have questioned what the implications of this change in Arctic sea ice extent might be for weather in Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes, and in particular whether recent extremely cold winters such as 2009/10 might be consistent with an influence from observed Arctic sea ice decline. However, the proposed mechanisms for these links have not been consistently demonstrated. In a uniquely comprehensive cross-season and cross-model study, we show that the CMIP5 models provide no support for a relationship between declining Arctic sea ice and a negative NAM, or between declining Barents–Kara sea ice and cold European temperatures. The lack of evidence for the proposed links is consistent with studies that report a low signal-to-noise ratio in these relationships. These results imply that, whilst links may exist between declining sea ice and extreme cold weather events in the Northern Hemisphere, the CMIP5 model experiments do not show this to be a leading order effect in the long-term. We argue that this is likely due to a combination of the limitations of the CMIP5 models and an indication of other important long-term influences on Northern Hemisphere climate

How climate change is affecting sea levels

Sea level rise increases the frequency and severity of storm surges and coastal flooding, causing serious damage to critical infrastructure and leading to the displacement of coastal communities around the world. Globally, more than 600 million people live in low‐lying coastal areas at less than 10m elevation, and the population of these regions is expected to exceed 1 billion by 2050 (Neumann et al., 2015). In the United Kingdom, current annual damages from coastal flooding are estimated at over £500 million per year (Edwards, 2017), and costs of damage are likely to increase under projections of future sea level rise

A locally time-invariant metric for climate model ensemble predictions of extreme risk

Adaptation-relevant predictions of climate change are often derived by combining climate model simulations in a multi-model ensemble. Model evaluation methods used in performance-based ensemble weighting schemes have limitations in the context of high-impact extreme events. We introduce a locally time-invariant method for evaluating climate model simulations with a focus on assessing the simulation of extremes. We explore the behaviour of the proposed method in predicting extreme heat days in Nairobi and provide comparative results for eight additional cities

The impact of the mixing properties within the Antarctic stratospheric vortex on ozone loss in spring

Calculations of equivalent length from an artificial advected tracer provide new insight into the isentropic transport processes occurring within the Antarctic stratospheric vortex. These calculations show two distinct regions of approximately equal area: a strongly mixed vortex core and a broad ring of weakly mixed air extending out to the vortex boundary. This broad ring of vortex air remains isolated from the core between late winter and midspring. Satellite measurements of stratospheric H2O confirm that the isolation lasts until at least mid-October. A three-dimensional chemical transport model simulation of the Antarctic ozone hole quantifies the ozone loss within this ring and demonstrates its isolation. In contrast to the vortex core, ozone loss in the weakly mixed broad ring is not complete. The reasons are twofold. First, warmer temperatures in the broad ring prevent continuous polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) formation and the associated chemical processing (i.e., the conversion of unreactive chlorine into reactive forms). Second, the isolation prevents ozone-rich air from the broad ring mixing with chemically processed air from the vortex core. If the stratosphere continues to cool, this will lead to increased PSC formation and more complete chemical processing in the broad ring. Despite the expected decline in halocarbons, sensitivity studies suggest that this mechanism will lead to enhanced ozone loss in the weakly mixed region, delaying the future recovery of the ozone hole

Feedbacks on climate in the Earth system: introduction.

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Royal Society Publishing via http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.042

Regional disparities and seasonal differences in climate risk to rice labour.

The 880 million agricultural workers of the world are especially vulnerable to increasing heat stress due to climate change, affecting the health of individuals and reducing labour productivity. In this study, we focus on rice harvests across Asia and estimate the future impact on labour productivity by considering changes in climate at the time of the annual harvest. During these specific times of the year, heat stress is often high compared to the rest of the year. Examining climate simulations of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6), we identified that labour productivity metrics for the rice harvest, based on local wet-bulb globe temperature, are strongly correlated with global mean near-surface air temperature in the long term (p ≪ 0.01, R 2 > 0.98 in all models). Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C rather than 2.0 °C prevents a clear reduction in labour capacity of 1% across all Asia and 2% across Southeast Asia, affecting the livelihoods of around 100 million people. Due to differences in mechanization between and within countries, we find that rice labour is especially vulnerable in Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and the Indian states of West Bengal and Kerala. Our results highlight the regional disparities and importance in considering seasonal differences in the estimation of the effect of climate change on labour productivity and occupational heat-stress

The sensitivity of southeast pacific heat distribution to local and remote changes in ocean properties

AbstractThe Southern Ocean features ventilation pathways that transport surface waters into the subsurface thermocline on time scales from decades to centuries, sequestering anomalies of heat and carbon away from the atmosphere and thereby regulating the rate of surface warming. Despite its importance for climate sensitivity, the factors that control the distribution of heat along these pathways are not well understood. In this study, we use an observationally constrained, physically consistent global ocean model to examine the sensitivity of heat distribution in the recently ventilated subsurface Pacific (RVP) sector of the Southern Ocean to changes in ocean temperature and salinity. First, we define the RVP using numerical passive tracer release experiments that highlight the ventilation pathways. Next, we use an ensemble of adjoint sensitivity experiments to quantify the sensitivity of the RVP heat content to changes in ocean temperature and salinity. In terms of sensitivities to surface ocean properties, we find that RVP heat content is most sensitive to anomalies along the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), upstream of the subduction hotspots. In terms of sensitivities to subsurface ocean properties, we find that RVP heat content is most sensitive to basin-scale changes in the subtropical Pacific Ocean, around the same latitudes as the RVP. Despite the localized nature of mode water subduction hotspots, changes in basin-scale density gradients are an important controlling factor on heat distribution in the southeast Pacific.</jats:p