Vermischung in 3D sphärischen Konvektionsmodellen des Erdmantels

The existence of geochemically distinct reservoirs in the Earth's mantle is inferred from the observation of worldwide rather homogeneous mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB) on the one side and heterogeneous ocean island basalts (OIB) on the other side. How can these observations be reconciled with geophysically favoured large-scale convection? ... is an unresolved problem of global geodynamics. In this thesis stirring properties of 3-D spherical models of convection in the Earth's mantle are investigated numerically. Attempts to make the models more earthlike are described. It is proposed as a working assumption for future, more detailed investigations that there may have been a change from small-scale to large-scale convection during the evolution of the mantle

Emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) from coal-fired power plants in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina: First attempts of a validation of TROPOMI satellite products with airborne in situ measurements

The Western Balkan region is known for emitting alarmingly high sulphur dioxide amounts from coal-fired power plants. Though a number of environmental regulations have been introduced in recent years (e.g. desulphurisation installations, construction of modern power plants), the pollution burden is still much higher than recommended by the authorities. A number of different montoring systems are required to observe the growing pollution situation in the Western Balkan region, partly caused by a high energy demand from outside (e.g. Western Europe)

ESMValTool (v1.0) – a community diagnostic and performance metrics tool for routine evaluation of Earth system models in CMIP

A community diagnostics and performance metrics tool for the evaluation of Earth system models (ESMs) has been developed that allows for routine comparison of single or multiple models, either against predecessor versions or against observations. The priority of the effort so far has been to target specific scientific themes focusing on selected essential climate variables (ECVs), a range of known systematic biases common to ESMs, such as coupled tropical climate variability, monsoons, Southern Ocean processes, continental dry biases, and soil hydrology–climate interactions, as well as atmospheric CO2 budgets, tropospheric and stratospheric ozone, and tropospheric aerosols. The tool is being developed in such a way that additional analyses can easily be added. A set of standard namelists for each scientific topic reproduces specific sets of diagnostics or performance metrics that have demonstrated their importance in ESM evaluation in the peer-reviewed literature. The Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool) is a community effort open to both users and developers encouraging open exchange of diagnostic source code and evaluation results from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) ensemble. This will facilitate and improve ESM evaluation beyond the state-of-the-art and aims at supporting such activities within CMIP and at individual modelling centres. Ultimately, we envisage running the ESMValTool alongside the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) as part of a more routine evaluation of CMIP model simulations while utilizing observations available in standard formats (obs4MIPs) or provided by the user

ECHAM5 simulations with the HO2 + NO → HNO3 reaction

A HNO3-forming channel of the HO2 + NO reaction recently found in laboratory measurements (Butkovskaya et al., 2005, 2007) may significantly alter the concentration of HNO3, NOx, O3 and other trace gases in the tropopause region. This region is also significantly affected by air traffic NOx emissions. Cariolle et al. (2008) adopted a pressure- and temperature dependent parameterisation of the rate constant to assess the impact of the HO2 + NO -> HNO3 reaction on trace gas concentrations in a 2-D stratosphere-troposphere model, and a 3-D tropospheric chemical transport model. We implemented the parameterisation of Cariolle et al. (2008) into the 3-D stratosphere- troposphere chemistry-climate model ECHAM5 / MESSy. Here we present results of our test runs, in support of planned studies of the effects of aircraft emissions on atmospheric chemistry