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At least 109 records · Page 6

Cloud Adjustments From Large-Scale Smoke–Circulation Interactions Strongly Modulate the Southeastern Atlantic Stratocumulus-to-Cumulus Transition

Smoke from southern Africa blankets the southeastern Atlantic Ocean from June to October, producing strong and competing aerosol radiative effects. Smoke effects on the transition between overcast stratocumulus and scattered cumulus clouds are investigated along a Lagrangian (air-mass-following) trajectory in regional climate and large eddy simulation models. Results are compared with observations from three recent field campaigns that took place in August 2017: ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES), CLouds and Aerosol Radiative Impacts and Forcing: Year 2017 (CLARIFY), and Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC). The case study is set up around the joint ORACLES–CLARIFY flight that took place near Ascension Island on 18 August 2017. Smoke sampled upstream on an ORACLES flight on 15 August 2017 likely entrained into the marine boundary layer later sampled during the joint flight. The case is first simulated with the WRF-CAM5 regional climate model in three distinct setups: (1) FireOn, in which smoke emissions and any resulting smoke–cloud–radiation interactions are included; (2) FireOff, in which no smoke emissions are included; (3) RadOff, in which smoke emissions and their microphysical effects are included but aerosol does not interact directly with radiation. Over the course of the Lagrangian trajectory, differences in free tropospheric thermodynamic properties between FireOn and FireOff are nearly identical to those between FireOn and RadOff, showing that aerosol–radiation interactions are primarily responsible for the free tropospheric effects. These effects are non-intuitive: in addition to the expected heating within the core of the smoke plume, there is also a “banding” effect of cooler temperature (∼1–2 K) and greatly enhanced moisture (>2 g kg−1) at the plume top. This banding effect is caused by a vertical displacement of the former continental boundary layer in the free troposphere in the FireOn simulation resulting from anomalous diabatic heating due to smoke absorption of sunlight that manifests primarily as a few hundred meters per day reduction in large-scale subsidence over the ocean. A large eddy simulation (LES) is then forced with free tropospheric fields taken from the outputs for the WRF-CAM5 FireOn and FireOff runs. Cases are run by selectively perturbing one variable (e.g., aerosol number concentration, temperature, moisture, vertical velocity) at a time to better understand the contributions from different indirect (microphysical), “large-scale” semi-direct (above-cloud thermodynamic and subsidence changes), and “local” semi-direct (below-cloud smoke absorption) effects. Despite a more than 5-fold increase in cloud droplet number concentration when including smoke aerosol concentrations, minimal differences in cloud fraction evolution are simulated by the LES when comparing the base case with a perturbed aerosol case with identical thermodynamic and dynamic forcings. A factor of 2 decrease in background free tropospheric aerosol concentrations from the FireOff simulation shifts the cloud evolution from a classical entrainment-driven “deepening–warming” transition to trade cumulus to a precipitation-driven “drizzle-depletion” transition to open cells, however. The thermodynamic and dynamic changes caused by the WRF-simulated large-scale adjustments to smoke diabatic heating strongly influence cloud evolution in terms of both the rate of deepening (especially for changes in the inversion temperature jump and in subsidence) and in cloud fraction on the final day of the simulation (especially for the moisture “banding” effect). Such large-scale semi-direct effects would not have been possible to simulate using a small-domain LES model alone.

southeast Atlantic Ocean↗

A global model for rain attenuation prediction

A model was developed for the prediction of rain attenuation statistics for 8 rain rate climate regions spanning all land regions from the equator to the poles. The model uses empirically determined rain rate distributions for each climate region and an empirical model to estimate path averaged rain rate for given values of point rain rate. Attenuation distribution observations were compared with model predictions. Good agreement was obtained for earth-space paths at 0.1 percent of the year. At the extremes, 0.01 and 1 percent of the year the observations were generally within the model estimate bounds but the agreement is not as good as at 0.1 percent of the year. The discrepancies are attributed to the limited duration of the attenuation observations and to the limited number of rain rate distribution observations.

Crane, R. K.↗

Does Dynamical Downscaling Introduce Novel Information in Climate Model Simulations of Recipitation Change over a Complex Topography Region?

Current climate and future climate-warming runs with the RegCM Regional Climate Model (RCM) at 50 and 11 km-resolutions forced by the ECHAM GCM are used to examine whether the increased resolution of the RCM introduces novel information in the precipitation field when the models are run for the mountainous region of the Hellenic peninsula. The model results are inter-compared with the resolution of the RCM output degraded to match that of the GCM, and it is found that in both the present and future climate runs the regional models produce more precipitation than the forcing GCM. At the same time, the RCM runs produce increases in precipitation with climate warming even though they are forced with a GCM that shows no precipitation change in the region. The additional precipitation is mostly concentrated over the mountain ranges, where orographic precipitation formation is expected to be a dominant mechanism. It is found that, when examined at the same resolution, the elevation heights of the GCM are lower than those of the averaged RCM in the areas of the main mountain ranges. It is also found that the majority of the difference in precipitation between the RCM and the GCM can be explained by their difference in topographic height. The study results indicate that, in complex topography regions, GCM predictions of precipitation change with climate warming may be dry biased due to the GCM smoothing of the regional topography.

Tselioudis, George↗

Satellites quantify the spatial extent of cyanobacterial blooms across the United States at multiple scales

Previous studies indicate that cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom (cyanoHAB) frequency, extent, and magnitude have increased globally over the past few decades. However, little quantitative capability is available to assess these metrics of cyanoHABs across broad geographic scales and at regular intervals. Here, the spatial extent was quantified from a cyanobacteria algorithm applied to two European Space Agency satellite platforms—the MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) onboard Envisat and the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) onboard Sentinel-3. CyanoHAB spatial extent was defined for each geographic area as the percentage of valid satellite pixels that exhibited cyanobacteria above the detection limit of the satellite sensor. This study quantified cyanoHAB spatial extent for over 2,000 large lakes and reservoirs across the contiguous United States (CONUS) during two time periods: 2008–2011 via MERIS and 2017–2020 via OLCI when cloud-, ice-, and snowfree imagery was available. Approximately 56% of resolvable lakes were glaciated, 13% were headwater, isolated, or terminal lakes, and the rest were primarily drainage lakes. Results were summarized at national-, regional-, state-, and lake-scales, where regions were defined as nine climate regions which represent climatically consistent states. As measured by satellite, changes in national cyanoHAB extent did have a strong increase of 6.9% from 2017 to 2020 (|Kendall’s tau (τ)| = 0.56; gamma (γ) = 2.87 years), but had negligible change (|τ| = 0.03) from 2008 to 2011. Two of the nine regions had moderate (0.3 ≤ |τ| < 0.5) increases in spatial extent from 2017 to 2020, and eight of nine regions had negligible (|τ| < 0.2) change from 2008 to 2011. Twelve states had a strong or moderate increase from 2017 to 2020 (|τ| ≥ 0.3), while only one state had a moderate increase and two states had a moderate decrease from 2008 to 2011. A decrease, or no change, in cyanoHAB spatial extent did not indicate a lack of issues related to cyanoHABs. Sensitivity results of randomly omitted daily CONUS scenes confirm that even with reduced data availability during a short four-year temporal assessment, the direction and strength of the changes in spatial extent remained consistent. We present the first set of national maps of lake cyanoHAB spatial extent across CONUS and demonstrate an approach for quantifying past and future changes at multiple spatial scales. Results presented here provide water quality managers information regarding current cyanoHAB spatial extent and quantify rates of change.

Harmful algal blooms↗

Satellites Quantify the Spatial Extent of Cyanobacterial Blooms Across the United States at Multiple Scales

Previous studies indicate that cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom (cyanoHAB) frequency, extent, and magnitude have increased globally over the past few decades. However, little quantitative capability is available to assess these metrics of cyanoHABs across broad geographic scales and at regular intervals. Here, the spatial extent was quantified from a cyanobacteria algorithm applied to two European Space Agency satellite platforms—the MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) onboard Envisat and the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) onboard Sentinel-3. CyanoHAB spatial extent was defined for each geographic area as the percentage of valid satellite pixels that exhibited cyanobacteria above the detection limit of the satellite sensor. This study quantified cyanoHAB spatial extent for over 2,000 large lakes and reservoirs across the contiguous United States (CONUS) during two time periods: 2008–2011 via MERIS and 2017–2020 via OLCI when cloud-, ice-, and snow-free imagery was available. Approximately 56% of resolvable lakes were glaciated, 13% were headwater, isolated, or terminal lakes, and the rest were primarily drainage lakes. Results were summarized at national-, regional-, state-, and lake-scales, where regions were defined as nine climate regions which represent climatically consistent states. As measured by satellite, changes in national cyanoHAB extent did have a strong increase of 6.9% from 2017 to 2020 (|Kendall’s tau (τ)| = 0.56; gamma (γ) = 2.87 years), but had negligible change (|τ| = 0.03) from 2008 to 2011. Two of the nine regions had moderate (0.3 ≤ |τ| < 0.5) increases in spatial extent from 2017 to 2020, and eight of nine regions had negligible (|τ| < 0.2) change from 2008 to 2011. Twelve states had a strong or moderate increase from 2017 to 2020 (|τ| ≥ 0.3), while only one state had a moderate increase and two states had a moderate decrease from 2008 to 2011. A decrease, or no change, in cyanoHAB spatial extent did not indicate a lack of issues related to cyanoHABs. Sensitivity results of randomly omitted daily CONUS scenes confirm that even with reduced data availability during a short four-year temporal assessment, the direction and strength of the changes in spatial extent remained consistent. We present the first set of national maps of lake cyanoHAB spatial extent across CONUS and demonstrate an approach for quantifying past and future changes at multiple spatial scales. Results presented here provide water quality managers information regarding current cyanoHAB spatial extent and quantify rates of change.

Harmful Algal Blooms↗

Uncertainties in Evapotranspiration Estimates over West Africa

An evapotranspiration (ET) ensemble composed of 36 land surface model (LSM) experiments and four diagnostic datasets (GLEAM, ALEXI, MOD16, and FLUXNET) is used to investigate uncertainties in ET estimate over five climate regions in West Africa. Diagnostic ET datasets show lower uncertainty estimates and smaller seasonal variations than the LSM-based ET values, particularly in the humid climate regions. Overall, the impact of the choice of LSMs and meteorological forcing datasets on the modeled ET rates increases from north to south. The LSM formulations and parameters have the largest impact on ET in humid regions, contributing to 90% of the ET uncertainty estimates. Precipitation contributes to the ET uncertainty primarily in arid regions. The LSM-based ET estimates are sensitive to the uncertainty of net radiation in arid region and precipitation in humid region. This study serves as support for better determining water availability for agriculture and livelihoods in Africa with earth observations and land surface models.

land surface model↗

Investigating Downscaling Methods and Evaluating Climate Models for Use in Estimating Regional Water Resources in Mountainous Regions under Changing Climatic Conditions

The purpose of this three-year study is to develop and evaluate techniques to estimate the range of potential hydrological impacts of climate change in mountainous areas. Three main objectives are set out in the proposal. (1) To develop and evaluate transfer functions to link tropospheric circulation to regional snowfall. (2) To evaluate a suite of General Circulation Models (GCMs) for use in estimating synoptic scale circulation and the resultant regional snowfall. And (3) to estimate the range of potential hydrological impacts of changing climate in the two case study areas: the Upper Colorado River basin, and the Catskill Mountains of southeastern New York State. Both regions provide water to large populations.

Frei, Allan↗

Future Changes in Snowpack, Snowmelt, and Runoff Potential Extremes Over North America

Snowpack and snowmelt-driven extreme events (e.g., floods) have large societal consequences including infrastructure failures. However, it is not well understood how projected changes in the snow-related extremes differ across North America. Using dynamically downscaled regional climate model (RCM) simulations, we found that the magnitudes of extreme snow water equivalent, snowmelt, and runoff potential (RP; snowmelt plus precipitation) decrease by 72%, 73%, and 45%, respectively, over the continental United States and southern Canada but increase by up to 8%, 53%, and 41% in Alaska and northern Canada by the late 21st century. In California and the Pacific Northwest, there is a notable increase in extreme RP by 21% contrary to a decrease in snowmelt by 31% by the late century. These regions could be vulnerable to larger rain-on-snow floods in a warmer climate. Regions with a large variability among RCM ensembles are identified, which require further investigation to reduce the regional uncertainties.

Eunsang Cho↗

Influence of regional anthropogenic changes over Nile region on the climate system during the late Holocene (~2500 years before present)

The societal impacts of climate change during the late Holocene leads to regional anthropogenic changes over the Nile region floodplain and could have acted in tandem with natural factors like major volcanic eruptions on the regional climate system to magnify the local climatic impacts. This study aims to explore and investigate the sensitivity of climatic changes to the regional anthropogenic changes due to various factors over the Nile river floodplains during the late-Holocene (2.5K years before present). The GISS ModelE Earth system model will be used to simulate the various scenarios of regional increasing/decreasing river fraction, changes in vegetation type and cover, along with changes in land surface type against the no-changes scenario in absence of volcanic eruptions. The spatial coverage of the Nile river basin is estimated using the GIS shapefile based on elevation data from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) at 3 Arc-seconds (approx. 90-meter) horizontal resolution. The extent of flooding in the model grid (2.0°x2.5° in latitude and longitude) is estimated using the existing high-resolution (0.125°x0.125°) gridded topographic elevation information and mapped over the Nile river floodplains. This study also focuses on evaluating the NASA GISS ModelE for resolving the climate feedbacks and response on climate system due to anthropogenic changes and volcanic eruptions. It is also aimed to analyze and quantify the impact of various anthropogenic factors over the African monsoon system and rainfall over the region, which feeds the Nile River.

Anthropogenic changes↗

Climatic forcing of carbon-oxygen isotopic covariance in temperate-region marl lakes

Carbon and oxygen stable isotopic compositions of lacustrine carbonate from a southeastern Michigan marl lake display linear covariance over a range of 4.0% Peedee belemnite (PDB) in oxygen and 3.9% (PDB) in carbon. Mechanisms of delta 13 C-delta 18 O coupling conventionally attributed to lake closure in arid-region basins are inapplicable to hydrologically open lake systems. Thus, an alternative explanation of isotopic covariance in temperate region dimictic marl lakes is required. We propose that isotopic covariance is a direct record of change in regional climate. In short-residence-time temperate-region lake basins, summer meteoric precipitation is enriched in 18O relative to winter values, and summer organic productivity enriches epilimnic dissolved inorganic carbon in 13C. Thus, climate change toward longer summers and/or shorter winters could result in greater proportions of warm-month meteoric precipitation, longer durations of warm-month productivity, and net long-term enrichment in carbonate 18O and 13C. Isotopic covariance observed in the Michigan marl lake cores is interpreted to reflect postglacial warming from 10 to 3 ka followed by cooler mean annual temperature, a shift toward greater proportions of seasonal summer precipitation, a shortening of the winter season, or some combination of these three factors.

NASA Discipline Number 52-30↗

Variable-Resolution GCMs

Variable resolution GCMs using a global stretched grid (SG) with enhanced regional resolute over multiple (four) areas of interest represent a viable new approach to regional climate and climate change studies and applications. The four areas, one at each global quadrant, include major global monsoonal circulations over North America, South America, India-China, and Australia. The SG-approach is an ideal tool for representing consistent interactions of global/large- and regional/mesoscales. It is an alternative to the widely used nested-grid approach. Several existing SG-GCMs are briefly described. The major discussion is based on the GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) SG-GCM regional climate simulations.

Fox-Rabinovitz, Michael S.↗

Comparison of simulated cloud cover with satellite obsrvations over the Western United States

Satellite imagery datasets and regional climate model results are intercompared for evaluation of model accuracy in the simulation of cloud cover. Both monthly average individual simulation times are analyzed. To provide a consistent comparison, satellite data are first mapped into the model's geographic projection, grid domain, and resolution. It is found that September 1988 monthly average cloud fraction results from the modeled simulations correspond to observations, in both spatial pattern and magnitude, with bias less than +/- 20% cloud fraction over the entire inland West. Agreement in the pattern of cloud fraction also is evident for monthly average cloud fraction in July, but there is no negative bias of 10%-30% cloud fraction in the model diagnosis of cloud cover. Correlations between the spatial distributions of model-derived and observed cloud fractions are found to exceed 0.80 for certain geographic regions of the West, and these correlations are largest over mountainous areas during summer. Case studies of a series of daily cloud cover demonstrate the ability of the model to simulate the effects of frontal passage on cloud distribution. The ability of the RegCM1 to simulate daily cloud fraction and diurnal cloud evolution is somewhat weak for the summer convective season. It is anticipated that a more recent version of the regional climate model may improve the simulation of summer season cloud cover, through changes in cloud parameterization and improvements in model resolution.

Wetzel, Melanie A.↗

Exploring the Longwave Radiative Effects of Dust Aerosols

Dust aerosols not only affect air quality and visibility where they pose a significant health and safety risk, but they can also play a role in modulating the energy balance of the Earth-atmosphere system by directly interacting with local radiative fields. Consequently, dust aerosols can impact regional climate patterns such as changes in precipitation and the evolution of the hydrological cycle. Assessing the direct effect of dust aerosols at the solar wavelengths is fairly straightforward due in part to the relatively large signal-to-noise ratio in broadband irradiance measurements. The longwave (LW) impacts, on the other hand, are rather difficult to ascertain since the measured dust signal level (10 Wm-2) is on the same order as the instrumental uncertainties. Moreover, compared to the shortwave (SW), limited experimental data on the LW optical properties of dust makes it a difficult challenge for constraining the LW impacts. Owing to the strong absorption features found in many terrestrial minerals (e.g., silicates and clays), the LW effects, although much smaller in magnitude compared to the SW, can still have a sizeable impact on the energetics of the Earth-atmosphere system, which can potentially trigger changes in the heat and moisture surface budgets, and dynamics of the atmosphere. The current endeavor is an integral part of an on-going research study to perform detailed assessments of dust direct aerosol radiative effects (DARE) using comprehensive global datasets from NASA Goddards mobile ground-based facility (cf. http://smartlabs.gsfc.nasa.gov/) during previous field experiments near key dust source regions. Here we examine and compare the results from two of these studies: the 2006 NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Activities and the 2008 Asian Monsoon Years. The former study focused on transported Saharan dust at Sal Island (16.73N, 22.93W), Cape Verde along the west coast of Africa while the latter focused on Asian dust at Zhangye China (39.082N, 100.276E), a semi-arid region between the Taklimakan and Gobi deserts. NASA Goddards Giovanni system is used to help map out the spatial distribution of retrieved aerosol optical depths across the latter desert regions. 1-D radiative transfer model constrained by local measurements, including spectral photometry/interferometry and lidar for characterizing the spatiotemporal variability in dust properties and atmospheric conditions, is employed to evaluate the local instantaneous LW DARE of dust both at the surface and at the top of the atmosphere along with heating rate profiles for cloud-free atmospheres. The efficiency in LW DARE and its significance relative to the diurnally averaged SW effects are explored and compared in both studies. Found to be non-negligible, LW DARE is an important component in the study of regional climate variation with important implications for more detailed global assessments.

Hansell, Richard A., Jr.↗

Impact of Asian Aerosols on Precipitation Over California: An Observational and Model Based Approach

Dust and pollution emissions from Asia are often transported across the Pacific Ocean to over the western United States. Therefore, it is essential to fully understand the impact of these aerosols on clouds and precipitation forming over the eastern Pacific and western United States, especially during atmospheric river events that account for up to half of California's annual precipitation and can lead to widespread flooding. In order for numerical modeling simulations to accurately represent the present and future regional climate of the western United States, we must account for the aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions associated with Asian dust and pollution aerosols. Therefore, we have constructed a detailed study utilizing multi-sensor satellite observations, NOAA-led field campaign measurements, and targeted numerical modeling studies where Asian aerosols interacted with cloud and precipitation processes over the western United States. In particular, we utilize aerosol optical depth retrievals from the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-11), and Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT) to effectively detect and monitor the trans-Pacific transport of Asian dust and pollution. The aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals are used in assimilating the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) in order to provide the model with an accurate representation of the aerosol spatial distribution across the Pacific. We conduct WRF-Chem model simulations of several cold-season atmospheric river events that interacted with Asian aerosols and brought significant precipitation over California during February-March 2011 when the NOAA CalWater field campaign was ongoing. The CalWater field campaign consisted of aircraft and surface measurements of aerosol and precipitation processes that help extensively validate our WRF-Chem model simulations. After validating the capability of the WRF-Chem in realistically simulating the aerosol-cloud precipitation interactions, we conduct sensitivity studies where the AOD is doubled to diagnose whether an increasing concentration of Asian aerosols over the western United States will lead to further impacts on the cloud and precipitation processes over California. We also perform sensitivity studies where the aerosols will be partitioned into dust-only and pollution-only in order to separate the impacts of the differing Asian aerosol species. The results of our WRF-Chem model simulations aim to show that the trans-Pacific transport of Asian aerosols influence the precipitation associated with atmospheric river events that can ultimately impact the regional climate of the western United States. 1 University

Naeger, Aaron R.↗

Simulations of X-59 Sonic Thumps and Traditional Sonic Booms Propagated Around the World for Three Atmospheric Models

Propagation simulations of sonic booms from supersonic aircraft through atmospheric data over time at fixed locations provides the opportunity to assess noise exposure statistics for different climate regions. Knowledge of climate-based differences in sonic boom noise exposure statistics is important to ensure that future civil supersonic aircraft noise certification standards are globally applicable and effective. In this presentation, simulated sonic booms from the NASA X-59 Quesst quiet supersonic aircraft and conventional supersonic aircraft were propagated through atmospheric data at 100 locations across the world using PCBoom. Noise exposure statistics are compared for propagation results from three different atmospheric databases (NOAA Global Forecast System, NOAA Climate Forecast System Version 2, and the ECMWF Reanalysis Version 5). These atmospheric models were chosen due to their global coverage, popularity, and database availability. Preliminary statistical models are fit to assess the impact of several factors including flight direction, season, ground elevation, and climate on noise exposure size and loudness. Areas with prevalence of higher noise due to their climate are identified, which could help inform future supersonic aircraft noise standards.

X-59↗

Downscaling a Global Climate Model to Simulate Climate Change Impacts on U.S. Regional and Urban Air Quality

Climate change can exacerbate future regional air pollution events by making conditions more favorable to form high levels of ozone. In this study, we use spectral nudging with WRF to downscale NASA earth system GISS modelE2 results during the years 2006 to 2010 and 2048 to 2052 over the continental United States in order to compare the resulting meteorological fields from the air quality perspective during the four seasons of five-year historic and future climatological periods. GISS results are used as initial and boundary conditions by the WRF RCM to produce hourly meteorological fields. The downscaling technique and choice of physics parameterizations used are evaluated by comparing them with in situ observations. This study investigates changes of similar regional climate conditions down to a 12km by 12km resolution, as well as the effect of evolving climate conditions on the air quality at major U.S. cities. The high resolution simulations produce somewhat different results than the coarse resolution simulations in some regions. Also, through the analysis of the meteorological variables that most strongly influence air quality, we find consistent changes in regional climate that would enhance ozone levels in four regions of the U.S. during fall (Western U.S., Texas, Northeastern, and Southeastern U.S), one region during summer (Texas), and one region where changes potentially would lead to better air quality during spring (Northeast). We also find that daily peak temperatures tend to increase in most major cities in the U.S. which would increase the risk of health problems associated with heat stress. Future work will address a more comprehensive assessment of emissions and chemistry involved in the formation and removal of air pollutants.

meteorological parameters↗