Lead–lag relationships between global mean temperature and the atmospheric CO<inf>2</inf> content in dependence of the type and time scale of the forcing

© 2016 Elsevier B.V.By employing an Earth system model of intermediate complexity (EMIC) developed at the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS CM), mutual lags between global mean surface air temperature, T and the atmospheric CO2 content, q, in dependence of the type and time scale of the external forcing are explored. In the simulation, which follows the protocol of the Coupled Models Intercomparison Project, phase 5, T leads q for volcanically-induced climate variations. In contrast, T lags behind q for changes caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In additional idealized numerical experiments, driven by periodic external emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, T always lags behind q as expected. In contrast, if the model is driven by the periodic non-greenhouse radiative forcing, T leads q for the external forcing time scale ≤4 ×102 yr, while q leads T at longer scales. The latter is an example that lagged correlations do not necessarily represent causal relationships in a system. This apparently counter-intuitive result, however, is a direct consequence of i) temperature sensitivity of the soil carbon stock (which decreases if climate is warmed and increases if climate is cooled), ii) conservation of total mass of carbon in the system in the absence of external carbon emissions, iii) increased importance of the oceanic branch of the carbon cycle at longer time scales. The results obtained with an EMIC are further interpreted with a conceptual Earth system model consisting of an energy balance climate model and a globally averaged carbon cycle model. The obtained results have implications to the empirical studies attempting to understand the origins of the contemporary climate change by applying lead–lag relationships to empirical data

Changes in global blocking character in recent decades

A global blocking climatology published by this group for events that occurred during the late 20th century examined a comprehensive list of characteristics that included block intensity (BI). In addition to confirming the results of other published climatologies, they found that Northern Hemisphere (NH) blocking events (1968-1998) were stronger than Southern Hemisphere (SH) blocks and winter events are stronger than summer events in both hemispheres. This work also examined the interannual variability of blocking as related to El Niño and Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Since the late 20th century, there is evidence that the occurrence of blocking has increased globally. A comparison of blocking characteristics since 1998 (1998-2018 NH; 2000-2018 SH) shows that the number of blocking events and their duration have increased significantly in both hemispheres. The blocking BI has decreased by about six percent in the NH, but there was little change in the BI for the SH events. Additionally, there is little or no change in the primary genesis regions of blocking. An examination of variability related to ENSO reveals that the NH interannual-scale variations found in the earlier work has reversed in the early 21st century. This could either be the result of interdecadal variability or a change in the climate. Interdecadal variations are examined as well

ChAP 1.0: A stationary tropospheric sulfur cycle for Earth system models of intermediate complexity

A stationary, computationally efficient scheme ChAP 1.0 (Chemical and Aerosol Processes, version 1.0) for the sulfur cycle in the troposphere is developed. This scheme is designed for Earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs). The scheme accounts for sulfur dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, its deposition to the surface, oxidation to sulfates, and dry and wet deposition of sulfates on the surface. The calculations with the scheme are forced by anthropogenic emissions of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere for 1850-2000 adopted from the CMIP5 dataset and by the ERA-Interim meteorology assuming that natural sources of sulfur into the atmosphere remain unchanged during this period. The ChAP output is compared to changes of the tropospheric sulfur cycle simulations with the CMIP5 data, with the IPCC TAR ensemble, and with the ACCMIP phase II simulations. In addition, in regions of strong anthropogenic sulfur pollution, ChAP results are compared to other data, such as the CAMS reanalysis, EMEP MSC-W, and individual model simulations. Our model reasonably reproduces characteristics of the tropospheric sulfur cycle known from these information sources. In our scheme, about half of the emitted sulfur dioxide is deposited to the surface, and the rest is oxidised into sulfates. In turn, sulfates are mostly removed from the atmosphere by wet deposition. The lifetimes of the sulfur dioxide and sulfates in the atmosphere are close to 1 and 5ĝ€¯d, respectively. The limitations of the scheme are acknowledged, and the prospects for future development are figured out. Despite its simplicity, ChAP may be successfully used to simulate anthropogenic sulfur pollution in the atmosphere at coarse spatial scales and timescales

Seasonal Temperature Extremes in the North Eurasian Regions Depending on ENSO Phase Transitions

Seasonal anomalies of surface air temperature were analyzed for the North Eurasian regions in mid-latitudes using long-term data from the end of the 19th century with an assessment of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effects. In particular, temperature anomalies in the spring–summer months for the European (ER) and Asian (AR) Russian regions for different phase transitions of the ENSO phenomena were estimated using the Niño3, Niño3.4 and Niño4 indices. The largest frequency of the extremely high-temperature and drought conditions in spring–summer months in ER was detected for years starting in the El Niño phase with the transition to the La Niña phase at the end of the year. Such conditions were realized in ER in summer 2010 (“Russian heatwave”). The corresponding largest frequency of high temperature in AR was obtained for conditions with the continuation of the El Niño phase during the whole year. Such conditions in AR were noted, in particular, in the summer of 2015, with an extremely high temperature and extremely low precipitation in the Lake Baikal basin

Lead–lag relationships between global mean temperature and the atmospheric CO<inf>2</inf> content in dependence of the type and time scale of the forcing

© 2016 Elsevier B.V.By employing an Earth system model of intermediate complexity (EMIC) developed at the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS CM), mutual lags between global mean surface air temperature, T and the atmospheric CO2 content, q, in dependence of the type and time scale of the external forcing are explored. In the simulation, which follows the protocol of the Coupled Models Intercomparison Project, phase 5, T leads q for volcanically-induced climate variations. In contrast, T lags behind q for changes caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In additional idealized numerical experiments, driven by periodic external emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, T always lags behind q as expected. In contrast, if the model is driven by the periodic non-greenhouse radiative forcing, T leads q for the external forcing time scale ≤4 ×102 yr, while q leads T at longer scales. The latter is an example that lagged correlations do not necessarily represent causal relationships in a system. This apparently counter-intuitive result, however, is a direct consequence of i) temperature sensitivity of the soil carbon stock (which decreases if climate is warmed and increases if climate is cooled), ii) conservation of total mass of carbon in the system in the absence of external carbon emissions, iii) increased importance of the oceanic branch of the carbon cycle at longer time scales. The results obtained with an EMIC are further interpreted with a conceptual Earth system model consisting of an energy balance climate model and a globally averaged carbon cycle model. The obtained results have implications to the empirical studies attempting to understand the origins of the contemporary climate change by applying lead–lag relationships to empirical data

Lead–lag relationships between global mean temperature and the atmospheric CO<inf>2</inf> content in dependence of the type and time scale of the forcing

© 2016 Elsevier B.V.By employing an Earth system model of intermediate complexity (EMIC) developed at the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS CM), mutual lags between global mean surface air temperature, T and the atmospheric CO2 content, q, in dependence of the type and time scale of the external forcing are explored. In the simulation, which follows the protocol of the Coupled Models Intercomparison Project, phase 5, T leads q for volcanically-induced climate variations. In contrast, T lags behind q for changes caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In additional idealized numerical experiments, driven by periodic external emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, T always lags behind q as expected. In contrast, if the model is driven by the periodic non-greenhouse radiative forcing, T leads q for the external forcing time scale ≤4 ×102 yr, while q leads T at longer scales. The latter is an example that lagged correlations do not necessarily represent causal relationships in a system. This apparently counter-intuitive result, however, is a direct consequence of i) temperature sensitivity of the soil carbon stock (which decreases if climate is warmed and increases if climate is cooled), ii) conservation of total mass of carbon in the system in the absence of external carbon emissions, iii) increased importance of the oceanic branch of the carbon cycle at longer time scales. The results obtained with an EMIC are further interpreted with a conceptual Earth system model consisting of an energy balance climate model and a globally averaged carbon cycle model. The obtained results have implications to the empirical studies attempting to understand the origins of the contemporary climate change by applying lead–lag relationships to empirical data

Lead–lag relationships between global mean temperature and the atmospheric CO<inf>2</inf> content in dependence of the type and time scale of the forcing

© 2016 Elsevier B.V.By employing an Earth system model of intermediate complexity (EMIC) developed at the A.M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS CM), mutual lags between global mean surface air temperature, T and the atmospheric CO2 content, q, in dependence of the type and time scale of the external forcing are explored. In the simulation, which follows the protocol of the Coupled Models Intercomparison Project, phase 5, T leads q for volcanically-induced climate variations. In contrast, T lags behind q for changes caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In additional idealized numerical experiments, driven by periodic external emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, T always lags behind q as expected. In contrast, if the model is driven by the periodic non-greenhouse radiative forcing, T leads q for the external forcing time scale ≤4 ×102 yr, while q leads T at longer scales. The latter is an example that lagged correlations do not necessarily represent causal relationships in a system. This apparently counter-intuitive result, however, is a direct consequence of i) temperature sensitivity of the soil carbon stock (which decreases if climate is warmed and increases if climate is cooled), ii) conservation of total mass of carbon in the system in the absence of external carbon emissions, iii) increased importance of the oceanic branch of the carbon cycle at longer time scales. The results obtained with an EMIC are further interpreted with a conceptual Earth system model consisting of an energy balance climate model and a globally averaged carbon cycle model. The obtained results have implications to the empirical studies attempting to understand the origins of the contemporary climate change by applying lead–lag relationships to empirical data

Phase Shift between Changes in Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO<inf>2</inf> Content under External Emissions of Greenhouse Gases into the Atmosphere

© 2019, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd. Abstract: The phase shift between changes in the global surface temperature Tg and atmospheric CO2 content (Formula Presented.) has been shown earlier not to characterize causal relationships in the Earth system in the general case. Specifically, the sign of this phase shift under nongreenhouse radiative forcing changes depends on the time scale of this forcing. This paper analyzes the phase shift between changes in the global surface temperature Tg and the atmospheric CO2 content (Formula Presented.) under synchronous external emissions of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere on the basis of numerical experiments with the IAP RAS climatic model and a conceptual climate model with carbon cycle. For a sufficiently large time scale of external forcing, the changes in (Formula Presented.) lag relative to the corresponding changes in Tg

Regime behaviour in the Atlantic-Eurasian Arctic related to sea ice and sea surface temperature changes

Climate change in the Arctic is embedded in the global climate system leading to phenomenon like Arctic Amplification and linkages to the mid-latitudes. A major forcing emerges from changed surface conditions like declining sea ice cover (SIC) and rising sea surface temperatures (SST). We performed time-slice model experiments with the global atmosphere-only model ECHAM6 and changed SIC and SST to either high or low states, respectively. These experiments are compared to reanalysis data and analysed aiming at a separation between the influences of SIC and SST, while focusing on linkages between the Arctic and mid-latitudes in winter. We identify five significant regimes in the Atlantic-Eurasian sector with the k-means clustering method. The regimes include different blocking patterns, situation with strong low pressure influence and the North Atlantic Oscillation in its two phases. Their frequency of occurrence is discussed for winter months. In the reanalysis we observe an increase of blocking patterns in early winter of the most recent decades. This is reproduced by our experiments with increased SST, where blocking becomes more dominant overall. In late winter, an increased frequency of occurrence of the North Atlantic Oscillation in its negative phase is observed. This and the overall temporal behaviour of regimes in recent years is best represented if SST and SIC are changed to their more recent state simultaneously. Therefore, our results suggest that increased SSTs and reduced SIC together act on observed linkages between polar regions and mid-latitudes