A novel tropopause-related climatology of ozone profiles

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sofieva, V.F.; Tamminen, J.; Kyrola, E.; Mielonen, T.; Veefkind, J.P.; Hassler, B.; Bodeker, G.E.

2014-01-01

A new ozone climatology, based on ozonesonde and satellite measurements, spanning the altitude region between the earth's surface and ~60 km is presented (TpO3 climatology). This climatology is novel in that the ozone profiles are categorized according to calendar month, latitude and local

Agro-climatology of the Colombian Caribbean Region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Claro Rizo, Francisco

1997-01-01

The agro-meteorology has for object the knowledge of the physical environment where the plants and the animals are developed, to make of him a better use, with the primordial purpose of optimizing the agricultural production. The climatology of the Caribbean Region, it is governed by the zonal processes of thermal and dynamic convection, together with the effect of the Inter-tropical Confluence Area (ITC) however, this extensive plain of the Colombian Caribbean, to be interrupted by the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta and framed by the Caribbean Sea and the Andean mountain ranges, it makes that big differences are presented in their climatic regime. In this study, climatic elements are analyzed in the region, such as the precipitation, the temperature and the relative humidity of the air, the radiation and the solar shine, the speed of the wind and the potential evapo-perspiration, besides the calculation of the hydraulic balances, those which as integrative of the agriculture-climatic aspects, they serve as base to make the climatic classifications, to know the growth periods and to calculate the potential water demands, fundamental parameters in the planning of the agricultural activities. With these results they stand out the diverse climates in the region, represented in climatic areas from arid until per-humid offer a wide range for the requirements of the different species that are used in the agricultural exploitations

A global satellite assisted precipitation climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Funk, Christopher C.; Verdin, Andrew P.; Michaelsen, Joel C.; Pedreros, Diego; Husak, Gregory J.; Peterson, P.

2015-01-01

Accurate representations of mean climate conditions, especially in areas of complex terrain, are an important part of environmental monitoring systems. As high-resolution satellite monitoring information accumulates with the passage of time, it can be increasingly useful in efforts to better characterize the earth's mean climatology. Current state-of-the-science products rely on complex and sometimes unreliable relationships between elevation and station-based precipitation records, which can result in poor performance in food and water insecure regions with sparse observation networks. These vulnerable areas (like Ethiopia, Afghanistan, or Haiti) are often the critical regions for humanitarian drought monitoring. Here, we show that long period of record geo-synchronous and polar-orbiting satellite observations provide a unique new resource for producing high resolution (0.05°) global precipitation climatologies that perform reasonably well in data sparse regions. Traditionally, global climatologies have been produced by combining station observations and physiographic predictors like latitude, longitude, elevation, and slope. While such approaches can work well, especially in areas with reasonably dense observation networks, the fundamental relationship between physiographic variables and the target climate variables can often be indirect and spatially complex. Infrared and microwave satellite observations, on the other hand, directly monitor the earth's energy emissions. These emissions often correspond physically with the location and intensity of precipitation. We show that these relationships provide a good basis for building global climatologies. We also introduce a new geospatial modeling approach based on moving window regressions and inverse distance weighting interpolation. This approach combines satellite fields, gridded physiographic indicators, and in situ climate normals. The resulting global 0.05° monthly precipitation climatology, the Climate

Intergrating Data From NASA Missions Into NOAAs Pacific Region Intergrated Climatology Information Products (PRICIP)

Science.gov (United States)

Benham, L.; Chester, K.; Eisberg, A.; Iyer, S.; Lee, K.; Marra, J.; Schmidt, C.; Skiles, J.

2008-12-01

The Pacific Region Integrated Climatology Information Products (PRICIP) Project is developing a number of products that will successfully promote awareness and understanding of the patterns and effects of "storminess" in the Pacific Rim. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Integrated Data and Environmental Applications (IDEA) Center initiated the PRICIP Project to improve our understanding of such storm processes by creating a web portal containing both scientific and socioeconomic information about Pacific storms. Working in conjunction with partners at NOAA, students from the NASA Ames DEVELOP internship program are integrating NASA satellite imagery into the PRICIP web portal by animating eight storm systems that took place in the South Pacific Ocean between 1992 and 2005, four other anomalous high water events in the Hawaiian Islands, and annual storm tracks. The primary intended audience includes coastal disaster management decision-makers and other similarly concerned agencies. The broad access of these web-based products is also expected to reach scientists, the National Weather Service (NWS), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and media broadcasting consumers. The newly integrated and animated hindcast data will also help educate laypersons about past storms and help them for future storms.

The Version 2 Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Monthly Precipitation Analysis (1979-Present)

Science.gov (United States)

Adler, Robert F.; Huffman, George J.; Chang, Alfred; Ferraro, Ralph; Xie, Ping-Ping; Janowiak, John; Rudolf, Bruno; Schneider, Udo; Curtis, Scott; Bolvin, David

2003-01-01

The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Version 2 Monthly Precipitation Analysis is described. This globally complete, monthly analysis of surface precipitation at 2.5 degrees x 2.5 degrees latitude-longitude resolution is available from January 1979 to the present. It is a merged analysis that incorporates precipitation estimates from low-orbit-satellite microwave data, geosynchronous-orbit-satellite infrared data, and rain gauge observations. The merging approach utilizes the higher accuracy of the low-orbit microwave observations to calibrate, or adjust, the more frequent geosynchronous infrared observations. The data set is extended back into the premicrowave era (before 1987) by using infrared-only observations calibrated to the microwave-based analysis of the later years. The combined satellite-based product is adjusted by the raingauge analysis. This monthly analysis is the foundation for the GPCP suite of products including those at finer temporal resolution, satellite estimate, and error estimates for each field. The 23-year GPCP climatology is characterized, along with time and space variations of precipitation.

Climatology 2011: An MLS and Sonde Derived Ozone Climatology for Satellite Retrieval Algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

McPeters, Richard D.; Labow, Gordon J.

2012-01-01

The ozone climatology used as the a priori for the version 8 Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) retrieval algorithms has been updated. The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument on Aura has excellent latitude coverage and measures ozone daily from the upper troposphere to the lower mesosphere. The new climatology consists of monthly average ozone profiles for ten degree latitude zones covering pressure altitudes from 0 to 65 km. The climatology was formed by combining data from Aura MLS (2004-2010) with data from balloon sondes (1988-2010). Ozone below 8 km (below 12 km at high latitudes) is based on balloons sondes, while ozone above 16 km (21 km at high latitudes) is based on MLS measurements. Sonde and MLS data are blended in the transition region. Ozone accuracy in the upper troposphere is greatly improved because of the near uniform coverage by Aura MLS, while the addition of a large number of balloon sonde measurements improves the accuracy in the lower troposphere, in the tropics and southern hemisphere in particular. The addition of MLS data also improves the accuracy of climatology in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. The revised climatology has been used for the latest reprocessing of SBUV and TOMS satellite ozone data.

An updated climatology of surface dimethlysulfide concentrations and emission fluxes in the global ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Lana, A.; Bell, T. G.; Simó, R.; Vallina, S. M.; Ballabrera-Poy, J.; Kettle, A. J.; Dachs, J.; Bopp, L.; Saltzman, E. S.; Stefels, J.; Johnson, J. E.; Liss, P. S.

2011-03-01

The potentially significant role of the biogenic trace gas dimethylsulfide (DMS) in determining the Earth's radiation budget makes it necessary to accurately reproduce seawater DMS distribution and quantify its global flux across the sea/air interface. Following a threefold increase of data (from 15,000 to over 47,000) in the global surface ocean DMS database over the last decade, new global monthly climatologies of surface ocean DMS concentration and sea-to-air emission flux are presented as updates of those constructed 10 years ago. Interpolation/extrapolation techniques were applied to project the discrete concentration data onto a first guess field based on Longhurst's biogeographic provinces. Further objective analysis allowed us to obtain the final monthly maps. The new climatology projects DMS concentrations typically in the range of 1-7 nM, with higher levels occurring in the high latitudes, and with a general trend toward increasing concentration in summer. The increased size and distribution of the observations in the DMS database have produced in the new climatology substantially lower DMS concentrations in the polar latitudes and generally higher DMS concentrations in regions that were severely undersampled 10 years ago, such as the southern Indian Ocean. Using the new DMS concentration climatology in conjunction with state-of-the-art parameterizations for the sea/air gas transfer velocity and climatological wind fields, we estimate that 28.1 (17.6-34.4) Tg of sulfur are transferred from the oceans into the atmosphere annually in the form of DMS. This represents a global emission increase of 17% with respect to the equivalent calculation using the previous climatology. This new DMS climatology represents a valuable tool for atmospheric chemistry, climate, and Earth System models.

REGIONAL AIR-SEA INTERACTION (RASI) GAP WIND AND COASTAL UPWELLING EVENTS CLIMATOLOGY GULF OF PAPAGAYO, COSTA RICA V1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Regional Air-Sea Interactions (RASI) Gap Wind and Coastal Upwelling Events Climatology Gulf of Papagayo, Costa Rica dataset was created using an automated...

Projection of wave conditions in response to climate change: A community approach to global and regional wave downscaling

Science.gov (United States)

Erikson, Li H.; Hemer, M.; Lionello, Piero; Mendez, Fernando J.; Mori, Nobuhito; Semedo, Alvaro; Wang, Xiaolan; Wolf, Judith

2015-01-01

Future changes in wind-wave climate have broad implications for coastal geomorphology and management. General circulation models (GCM) are now routinely used for assessing climatological parameters, but generally do not provide parameterizations of ocean wind-waves. To fill this information gap, a growing number of studies use GCM outputs to independently downscale wave conditions to global and regional levels. To consolidate these efforts and provide a robust picture of projected changes, we present strategies from the community-derived multi-model ensemble of wave climate projections (COWCLIP) and an overview of regional contributions. Results and strategies from one contributing regional study concerning changes along the eastern North Pacific coast are presented.

Simulation of the summer circulation over South America by two regional climate models. Part I: Mean climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandez, J. P. R.; Franchito, S. H.; Rao, V. B.

2006-09-01

This study investigates the capabilities of two regional models (the ICTP RegCM3 and the climate version of the CPTEC Eta model - EtaClim) in simulating the mean climatological features of the summer quasi-stationary circulations over South America. Comparing the results with the NCEP/DOE reanalysis II data it is seen that the RegCM3 simulates a weaker and southward shifted Bolivian high (BH). But, the Nordeste low (NL) is located close to its climatological position. In the EtaClim the position of the BH is reproduced well, but the NL is shifted towards the interior of the continent. To the east of Andes, the RegCM3 simulates a weaker low level jet and a weaker basic flow from the tropical Atlantic to Amazonia while they are stronger in the EtaClim. In general, the RegCM3 and EtaClim show, respectively a negative and positive bias in the surface temperature in almost all regions of South America. For both models, the correlation coefficients between the simulated precipitation and the GPCP data are high over most of South America. Although the RegCM3 and EtaClim overestimate the precipitation in the Andes region they show a negative bias in general over the entire South America. The simulations of upper and lower level circulations and precipitation fields in EtaClim were better than that of the RegCM3. In central Amazonia both models were unable to simulate the precipitation correctly. The results showed that although the RegCM3 and EtaClim are capable of simulating the main climatological features of the summer climate over South America, there are areas which need improvement. This indicates that the models must be more adequately tuned in order to give reliable predictions in the different regions of South America.

The NEWS Water Cycle Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Rodell, M.; Beaudoing, H. K.; L'Ecuyer, T.; Olson, W. S.

2012-12-01

NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) program fosters collaborative research towards improved quantification and prediction of water and energy cycle consequences of climate change. In order to measure change, it is first necessary to describe current conditions. The goal of the first phase of the NEWS Water and Energy Cycle Climatology project was to develop "state of the global water cycle" and "state of the global energy cycle" assessments based on data from modern ground and space based observing systems and data integrating models. The project was a multi-institutional collaboration with more than 20 active contributors. This presentation will describe the results of the water cycle component of the first phase of the project, which include seasonal (monthly) climatologies of water fluxes over land, ocean, and atmosphere at continental and ocean basin scales. The requirement of closure of the water budget (i.e., mass conservation) at various scales was exploited to constrain the flux estimates via an optimization approach that will also be described. Further, error assessments were included with the input datasets, and we examine these in relation to inferred uncertainty in the optimized flux estimates in order to gauge our current ability to close the water budget within an expected uncertainty range.

The NEWS Water Cycle Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Rodell, Matthew; Beaudoing, Hiroko Kato; L'Ecuyer, Tristan; William, Olson

2012-01-01

NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) program fosters collaborative research towards improved quantification and prediction of water and energy cycle consequences of climate change. In order to measure change, it is first necessary to describe current conditions. The goal of the first phase of the NEWS Water and Energy Cycle Climatology project was to develop "state of the global water cycle" and "state of the global energy cycle" assessments based on data from modern ground and space based observing systems and data integrating models. The project was a multi-institutional collaboration with more than 20 active contributors. This presentation will describe the results of the water cycle component of the first phase of the project, which include seasonal (monthly) climatologies of water fluxes over land, ocean, and atmosphere at continental and ocean basin scales. The requirement of closure of the water budget (i.e., mass conservation) at various scales was exploited to constrain the flux estimates via an optimization approach that will also be described. Further, error assessments were included with the input datasets, and we examine these in relation to inferred uncertainty in the optimized flux estimates in order to gauge our current ability to close the water budget within an expected uncertainty range.

TRMM-Based Lightning Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Cecil, Daniel J.; Buechler, Dennis E.; Blakeslee, Richard J.

2011-01-01

Gridded climatologies of total lightning flash rates seen by the spaceborne Optical Transient Detector (OTD) and Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) have been updated. OTD collected data from May 1995 to March 2000. LIS data (equatorward of about 38 deg) has been added for 1998-2010. Flash counts from each instrument are scaled by the best available estimates of detection efficiency. The long LIS record makes the merged climatology most robust in the tropics and subtropics, while the high latitude data is entirely from OTD. The mean global flash rate from the merged climatology is 46 flashes per second. The peak annual flash rate at 0.5 deg scale is 160 fl/square km/yr in eastern Congo. The peak monthly average flash rate at 2.5 scale is 18 fl/square km/mo, from early April to early May in the Brahmaputra Valley of far eastern India. Lightning decreases in this region during the monsoon season, but increases further north and west. A monthly average peak from early August to early September in northern Pakistan also exceeds any monthly averages from Africa, despite central Africa having the greatest yearly average. Most continental regions away from the equator have an annual cycle with lightning flash rates peaking in late spring or summer. The main exceptions are India and southeast Asia, with springtime peaks in April and May. For landmasses near the equator, flash rates peak near the equinoxes. For many oceanic regions, the peak flash rates occur in autumn. This is particularly noticeable for the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. Landmasses have a strong diurnal cycle of lightning, with flash rates generally peaking between 3-5 pm local solar time. The central United States flash rates peak later, in late evening or early night. Flash rates peak after midnight in northern Argentina. These regions are known for large, intense, long-lived mesoscale convective systems.

Analysis of high-resolution simulations for the Black Forest region from a point of view of tourism climatology - a comparison between two regional climate models (REMO and CLM)

Science.gov (United States)

Endler, Christina; Matzarakis, Andreas

2011-03-01

An analysis of climate simulations from a point of view of tourism climatology based on two regional climate models, namely REMO and CLM, was performed for a regional domain in the southwest of Germany, the Black Forest region, for two time frames, 1971-2000 that represents the twentieth century climate and 2021-2050 that represents the future climate. In that context, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios A1B and B1 are used. The analysis focuses on human-biometeorological and applied climatologic issues, especially for tourism purposes - that means parameters belonging to thermal (physiologically equivalent temperature, PET), physical (precipitation, snow, wind), and aesthetic (fog, cloud cover) facets of climate in tourism. In general, both models reveal similar trends, but differ in their extent. The trend of thermal comfort is contradicting: it tends to decrease in REMO, while it shows a slight increase in CLM. Moreover, REMO reveals a wider range of future climate trends than CLM, especially for sunshine, dry days, and heat stress. Both models are driven by the same global coupled atmosphere-ocean model ECHAM5/MPI-OM. Because both models are not able to resolve meso- and micro-scale processes such as cloud microphysics, differences between model results and discrepancies in the development of even those parameters (e.g., cloud formation and cover) are due to different model parameterization and formulation. Climatic changes expected by 2050 are small compared to 2100, but may have major impacts on tourism as for example, snow cover and its duration are highly vulnerable to a warmer climate directly affecting tourism in winter. Beyond indirect impacts are of high relevance as they influence tourism as well. Thus, changes in climate, natural environment, demography, tourists' demands, among other things affect economy in general. The analysis of the CLM results and its comparison with the REMO results complete the analysis performed

Galactic cosmic ray and El Nino Southern Oscillation trends in International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project D2 low-cloud properties

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Marsh, N.; Svensmark, Henrik

2003-01-01

[1] The recently reported correlation between clouds and galactic cosmic rays (GCR) implies the existence of a previously unknown process linking solar variability and climate. An analysis of the interannual variability of International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project D2 (ISCCP-D2) low-cloud...... a strong correlation with GCR, which suggests that low-cloud properties observed in these regions are less likely to be contaminated from overlying cloud. The GCR-low cloud correlation cannot easily be explained by internal climate processes, changes in direct solar forcing, or UV-ozone interactions...... properties over the period July 1983 to August 1994 suggests that low clouds are statistically related to two processes, (1) GCR and (2) El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with GCR explaining a greater percentage of the total variance. Areas where satellites have an unobstructed view of low cloud possess...

NEWS Climatology Project: The State of the Water Cycle at Continental to Global Scales

Science.gov (United States)

Rodell, Matthew; LEcuyer, Tristan; Beaudoing, Hiroko Kato; Olson, Bill

2011-01-01

NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) program fosters collaborative research towards improved quantification and prediction of water and energy cycle consequences of climate change. In order to measure change, it is first necessary to describe current conditions. The goal of the NEWS Water and Energy Cycle Climatology project is to develop "state of the global water cycle" and "state of the global energy cycle" assessments based on data from modern ground and space based observing systems and data integrating models. The project is a multiinstitutional collaboration with more than 20 active contributors. This presentation will describe results of the first stage of the water budget analysis, whose goal was to characterize the current state of the water cycle on mean monthly, continental scales. We examine our success in closing the water budget within the expected uncertainty range and the effects of forcing budget closure as a method for refining individual flux estimates.

The SHADOZ Data Base: History, Archive Web Guide, and Sample Climatologies

Science.gov (United States)

White, J. C.; Thompson, A. M.; Einaudi, Franco (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesonde) is a project to augment and archive ozonesonde data from ten tropical and subtropical ozone stations. Started in 1998 by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and other US and international co-investigators, SHADOZ is an important tool for tropospheric ozone research in the equatorial region. The rationale for SHADOZ is to: (1) validate and improve remote sensing techniques (e.g., the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) satellite) for estimating tropical ozone, (2) contribute to climatology and trend analyses of tropical ozone and (3) provide research topics to scientists and educate students, especially in participating countries. SHADOZ is envisioned as a data service to the global scientific community by providing a central public archive location via the internet: http://code9l6.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/shadoz. While the SHADOZ website maintains a standard data format for the archive, it also informs the data users on the differing stations' preparation techniques and data treatment. The presentation navigates through the SHADOZ website to access each station's sounding data and summarize each station's characteristics. Since the start of the project in 1998, the SHADOZ archive has accumulated over 600 ozonesonde profiles and received over 30,000 outside data requests. Data also includes launches from various SHADOZ supported field campaigns, such as, the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX), Sounding of Ozone and Water in the Equatorial Region (SOWER) and Aerosols99 Atlantic Cruise. Using data from the archive, sample climatologies and profiles from selected stations and campaigns will be shown.

Future changes in the climatology of the Great Plains low-level jet derived from fine resolution multi-model simulations.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Ying; Winkler, Julie; Zhong, Shiyuan; Bian, Xindi; Doubler, Dana; Yu, Lejiang; Walters, Claudia

2017-07-10

The southerly Great Plains low-level jet (GPLLJ) is one of the most significant circulation features of the central U.S. linking large-scale atmospheric circulation with the regional climate. GPLLJs transport heat and moisture, contribute to thunderstorm and severe weather formation, provide a corridor for the springtime migration of birds and insects, enhance wind energy availability, and disperse air pollution. We assess future changes in GPLLJ frequency using an eight member ensemble of dynamically-downscaled climate simulations for the mid-21st century. Nocturnal GPLLJ frequency is projected to increase in the southern plains in spring and in the central plains in summer, whereas current climatological patterns persist into the future for daytime and cool season GPLLJs. The relationship between future GPLLJ frequency and the extent and strength of anticyclonic airflow over eastern North America varies with season. Most simulations project a westward shift of anticyclonic airflow in summer, but uncertainty is larger for spring with only half of the simulations suggesting a westward expansion. The choice of regional climate model and the driving lateral boundary conditions have a large influence on the projected future changes in GPLLJ frequency and highlight the importance of multi-model ensembles to estimate the uncertainty surrounding the future GPLLJ climatology.

Climatological features of blocking anticyclones

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lupo, A.R.; Smith, P.J.; Oglesby, R.J.

1994-01-01

Several climatological studies have been previously performed using large observational data sets (i.e., 10 years or longer) in order to determine the predominant characteristics of blocking anticyclones, including favored development regions, duration, preferred seasonal occurrence, and frequency of occurrence. These studies have shown that blocking anticyclones occur most frequently from October to April over the eastern Atlantic and Pacific oceans downstream from both the North American and Asian continental regions and the storm track regions to the east of these continents. Some studies have also revealed the presence of a third region block formation in western Russia near 40 degrees E which is associated with another storm track region over the Mediterranean and western Asia

Some Spatial Aspects of Southeastern United States Climatology.

Science.gov (United States)

Soule, Peter T.

1998-01-01

Focuses on the climatology of an eight-state region in the southern and southeastern United States. Discusses general controls of climate and spatial patterns of various climatic averages. Examines mapped extremes as a means of fostering increased awareness of the variability that exists for climatic conditions in the region. (CMK)

Climatology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schoenwiese, C.D.

1994-01-01

Climatology is an important field of continuing interest in nearly all fields of science and beyond. In view of this interdisciplinary role, the textbook gives an accurate and intelligible introduction to the fundamentals and modern aspects of general climatology. It covers the basic concepts of climate elements, the physical processes, atmospheric circulation and further components of the ''climate system'' (ocean, ice, continents), as well as an explanation of the observed field characteristics of the climate, problems of climate modelling fundamentals of bioclimatology, and, last but not least, key aspects of climate history and anthropogenic effects on climate. (orig.) [de

The surface climatology of the Ross Ice Shelf Antarctica.

Science.gov (United States)

Costanza, Carol A; Lazzara, Matthew A; Keller, Linda M; Cassano, John J

2016-12-01

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Antarctic Automatic Weather Station (AWS) project has been making meteorological surface observations on the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) for approximately 30 years. This network offers the most continuous set of routine measurements of surface meteorological variables in this region. The Ross Island area is excluded from this study. The surface climate of the RIS is described using the AWS measurements. Temperature, pressure, and wind data are analysed on daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual time periods for 13 AWS across the RIS. The AWS are separated into three representative regions - central, coastal, and the area along the Transantarctic Mountains - in order to describe specific characteristics of sections of the RIS. The climatology describes general characteristics of the region and significant changes over time. The central AWS experiences the coldest mean temperature, and the lowest resultant wind speed. These AWSs also experience the coldest potential temperatures with a minimum of 209.3 K at Gill AWS. The AWS along the Transantarctic Mountains experiences the warmest mean temperature, the highest mean sea-level pressure, and the highest mean resultant wind speed. Finally, the coastal AWS experiences the lowest mean pressure. Climate indices (MEI, SAM, and SAO) are compared to temperature and pressure data of four of the AWS with the longest observation periods, and significant correlation is found for most AWS in sea-level pressure and temperature. This climatology study highlights characteristics that influence the climate of the RIS, and the challenges of maintaining a long-term Antarctic AWS network. Results from this effort are essential for the broader Antarctic meteorology community for future research.

GPS scintillations and total electron content climatology in the southern low, middle and high latitude regions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luca Spogli

2013-06-01

Full Text Available In recent years, several groups have installed high-frequency sampling receivers in the southern middle and high latitude regions, to monitor ionospheric scintillations and the total electron content (TEC changes. Taking advantage of the archive of continuous and systematic observations of the ionosphere on L-band by means of signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS, we present the first attempt at ionospheric scintillation and TEC mapping from Latin America to Antarctica. The climatology of the area considered is derived through Ground-Based Scintillation Climatology, a method that can identify ionospheric sectors in which scintillations are more likely to occur. This study also introduces the novel ionospheric scintillation 'hot-spot' analysis. This analysis first identifies the crucial areas of the ionosphere in terms of enhanced probability of scintillation occurrence, and then it studies the seasonal variation of the main scintillation and TEC-related parameters. The results produced by this sophisticated analysis give significant indications of the spatial/ temporal recurrences of plasma irregularities, which contributes to the extending of current knowledge of the mechanisms that cause scintillations, and consequently to the development of efficient tools to forecast space-weather-related ionospheric events.

LBA Regional Monthly Climatology for the 20th Century (New et al.)

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — ABSTRACT: This data set is a subset of "Global Monthly Climatology for the 20th Century (New et al.)" (2000a). This subset characterizes mean monthly surface climate...

LBA Regional Monthly Climatology for the 20th Century (New et al.)

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This data set is a subset of "Global Monthly Climatology for the 20th Century (New et al.)" (2000a). This subset characterizes mean monthly surface climate over the...

Developing MODIS-based cloud climatologies to aid species distribution modeling and conservation activities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael William Douglas

2016-10-01

Full Text Available WorldClim (Hijmans et al. 2005 has been the de-facto source of basic climatological analyses for most species distribution modeling research and conservation science applications because of its global coverage and fine (<1 km spatial resolution.  However, it has been recognized since its development that there are limitations in data-poor regions, especially with regard to the precipitation analyses.  Here we describe procedures to develop a satellite-based daytime cloudiness climatology that better reflects the variations in vegetation cover in many regions of the globe than do the WorldClim precipitation products.  Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS imagery from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA Terra and Aqua sun-synchronous satellites have recently been used to develop multi-year climatologies of cloudiness.  Several procedures exist for developing such climatologies.  We first discuss a simple procedure that uses brightness thresholds to identify clouds.  We compare these results with those from a more complex procedure: the MODIS Cloud Mask product, recently averaged into climatological products by Wilson and Jetz (2016.  We discuss advantages and limitations of both approaches.  We also speculate on further work that will be needed to improve the usefulness of these MODIS-based climatologies of cloudiness. Despite limitations of current MODIS-based climatology products, they have the potential to greatly improve our understanding of the distribution of biota across the globe.  We show examples from oceanic islands and arid coastlines in the subtropics and tropics where the MODIS products should be of special value in predicting the observed vegetation cover.  Some important applications of reliable climatologies based on MODIS imagery products will include 1 helping to restore long-degraded cloud-impacted environments; 2 improving estimations of the spatial distribution of cloud

Peer-tutoring educational experiences about meteorological and climatological issues in Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy)

Science.gov (United States)

Nordio, Sergio; Flapp, Federica

2017-04-01

The aim of this work is to present some experiences of intergenerational education about meteorology and climatology issues carried out with school pupils from 6 to 19 years old, through peer-tutoring methodology. These experiences started in 2003 and each year the project involves about 500 students in Friuli Venezia Giulia region (about 8.000 km2) in northeastern Italy. A group of volunteers (older students from upper secondary school, 17-19 years old) play the role of "tutor": they receive supplementary training on meteorology and climatology, and then, during students' meetings and/or public events, they teach younger pupils how to use meteorological instruments (thermometer, hygrometer, barometer, anemometer, rain gages, etc.) and they carry out interactive experiences such as "game-experiments", to better understand some meteorological concepts, like density of fluids, and some climatological notions, like the effects of climate change with an exhibit that simulates the greenhouse effect. They also do some meteorological forecasting exercises, using meteorological maps, as if they were actual forecasters. All these activities are addressed to pupils from primary (age 6-11) and lower secondary schools (age 11-14), and both tutors and their younger "apprentices" are not only cognitively, but also emotionally involved in such learning experiences. As a second step of this educational process, after consolidating the above mentioned peer-tutoring activities, high school students hare being actively involved in developing visual tools - e.g. video-clips, interviews and cartoons - in order to communicate climate change issues in the most effective way to younger pupils. Keywords: meteorology, climatology, climate change, schools, education, communication.

General Climatology 3

Science.gov (United States)

Hartmann, Dennis L.

General Climatology 3 is volume 3 of the series World Survey of Climatology, which consists of 15 volumes containing review articles on a broad range of topics. General Climatology 3 contains four chapters: ‘Human Bioclimatology,’ ‘Agricultural Climatology,’ ‘City Climate,’ and ‘Technical Climatology.’ Each of these chapters will be briefly described here.‘Human Bioclimatology,’ the first chapter, was authored by E. Flach and provides a survey of the effects on the human organism of the physical conditions at the earth's surface. It contains four main sections. A section entitled ‘Light and Life’ deals with the effects of solar radiation on man and contains much interesting information on the response of the human eye and human skin to radiation at various frequencies. ‘Air and Life’ discusses the composition of air and its effect on human health and performance, including discussions of the effects of altitude, aerosols, and noxious trace gases. ‘Temperature and Life’ discusses how the body responds to temperature and how it maintains its heat budget under the variety of conditions to which it falls subject and considerable discussion is given to objective ways to characterize air conditions that give an accurate measure of their impact on the body. This discussion leads naturally into the final section, ‘Bioclimatological Evaluation Systems,’ which addresses the problem of how to classify a particular site according to its overall suitability to human habitation.

Climatology and trend of wind power resources in China and its surrounding regions: a revisit using Climate Forecast System Reanalysis data

Science.gov (United States)

Lejiang Yu; Shiyuan Zhong; Xindi Bian; Warren E. Heilman

2015-01-01

The mean climatology, seasonal and interannual variability and trend of wind speeds at the hub height (80 m) of modern wind turbines over China and its surrounding regions are revisited using 33-year (1979–2011) wind data from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) that has many improvements including higher spatial resolution over previous global reanalysis...

The modification of the typhoon rainfall climatology model in Taiwan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C.-S. Lee

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This study is focused on the modification of a typhoon rainfall climatological model, by using the dataset up to 2006 and including data collected from rain gauge stations established after the 921 earthquake (1999. Subsequently, the climatology rainfall models for westward- and northward-moving typhoons are established by using the typhoon track classification from the Central Weather Bureau. These models are also evaluated and examined using dependent cases collected between 1989 and 2006 and independent cases collected from 2007 to 2011. For the dependent cases, the average total rainfall at all rain gauge stations forecasted using the climatology rainfall models for westward- (W-TRCM12 and northward-moving (N-TRCM12 typhoons is superior to that obtained using the original climatological model (TRCM06. Model W-TRCM12 significantly improves the precipitation underestimation of model TRCM06. The independent cases show that model W-TRCM12 provides better accumulated rainfall forecasts and distributions than model TRCM06. A climatological model for accompanied northeastern monsoons (A-TRCM12 for special typhoon types has also been established. The current A-TRCM12 model only contains five historical cases and various typhoon combinations can cause precipitation in different regions. Therefore, precipitation is likely to be significantly overestimated and high false alarm ratios are likely to occur in specific regions. For example, model A-TRCM12 significantly overestimates the rainfall forecast for Typhoon Mitag, an independent case from 2007. However, it has a higher probability of detection than model TRCM06. From a disaster prevention perspective, a high probability of detection is much more important than a high false alarm ratio. The modified models can contribute significantly to operational forecast.

Climatological variability in modeling of long-term regional transport and deposition of air pollutants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shannon, J.D.

1984-01-01

In a growing number of emission policy analyses, regulatory proceedings, and cost/benefit assessments, numerical models of long-range transport and deposition of air pollutants have been exercised to estimate source-receptor (S-R) relationships--for the particular meteorological conditions input to the model. The representativeness of the meteorological conditions, or the variability of the model estimates with climatological input from different years or corresponding seasons from different years, is seldom evaluated. Here, two full years (1980 and 1981) of meteorological data, as well as data from January and July of 1978, are used in the Advanced Statistical Trajectory Regional Air Pollution (ASTRAP) model (Shannon, 1981), one of the eight Memorandum of Intent (MOI) models, to estimate deposition for the S-R matrix combination of eleven source regions and nine receptors used in the MOI reports. (S-R matrices of dimensions 40 by 9 were also examined in the MOI reports.) Improvements in the ASTRAP model and in the emission inventory since the earlier work require recalculation of the two-month 1978 simulation in order for the comparison to isolate the effect of meteorological variability. The source regions are listed, and the receptor regions are provide. For completeness, an additional source region, the western states and provinces, has been added, as well as a total for the 48 contiguous states and 10 provinces. 4 references, 9 tables

The climatology of the Red Sea - part 1: the wind

KAUST Repository

Langodan, Sabique

2017-05-12

The wind climatology of the Red Sea is described based on a 30-year high-resolution regional reanalysis generated using the Advanced Weather Research Forecasting model. The model was reinitialized on a daily basis with ERA-Interim global data and regional observations were assimilated using a cyclic three-dimensional variational approach. The reanalysis products were validated against buoy and scatterometers data. We describe the wind climatology and identify four major systems that determine the wind patterns in the Red Sea. Each system has a well-defined origin, and consequently different characteristics along the year. After analysing the relevant features of the basin in terms of their climatology, we investigate possible long-term trends in each system. It is found that there is a definite tendency towards lowering the strength of the wind speed, but at a different rate for different systems and periods of the year.

The climatology of the Red Sea - part 1: the wind

KAUST Repository

Langodan, Sabique; Cavaleri, Luigi; Vishwanadhapalli, Yesubabu; Pomaro, Angela; Bertotti, Luciana; Hoteit, Ibrahim

2017-01-01

The wind climatology of the Red Sea is described based on a 30-year high-resolution regional reanalysis generated using the Advanced Weather Research Forecasting model. The model was reinitialized on a daily basis with ERA-Interim global data and regional observations were assimilated using a cyclic three-dimensional variational approach. The reanalysis products were validated against buoy and scatterometers data. We describe the wind climatology and identify four major systems that determine the wind patterns in the Red Sea. Each system has a well-defined origin, and consequently different characteristics along the year. After analysing the relevant features of the basin in terms of their climatology, we investigate possible long-term trends in each system. It is found that there is a definite tendency towards lowering the strength of the wind speed, but at a different rate for different systems and periods of the year.

Hydro-climatology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

The hydro-climatological approach of this volume illustrates the scientific and practical value of considering hydrological phenomena and processes in a climate context to improve understanding of controls, process interaction, and past and future variability/change. Contributions deal with under......The hydro-climatological approach of this volume illustrates the scientific and practical value of considering hydrological phenomena and processes in a climate context to improve understanding of controls, process interaction, and past and future variability/change. Contributions deal...... considered. The interdisciplinary approach reveals information and perspective that go beyond the study of cli ate and hydro gy alone...

The Mediterranean Moisture Contribution to Climatological and Extreme Monthly Continental Precipitation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danica Ciric

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Moisture transport from its sources to surrounding continents is one of the most relevant topics in hydrology, and its role in extreme events is crucial for understanding several processes such as intense precipitation and flooding. In this study, we considered the Mediterranean Sea as the main water source and estimated its contribution to the monthly climatological and extreme precipitation events over the surrounding continental areas. To assess the effect of the Mediterranean Sea on precipitation, we used the Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP database to characterize precipitation. The Lagrangian dispersion model known as FLEXPART was used to estimate the moisture contribution of this source. This contribution was estimated by tracking particles that leave the Mediterranean basin monthly and then calculating water loss (E − P < 0 over the continental region, which was modelled by FLEXPART. The analysis was conducted using data from 1980 to 2015 with a spatial resolution of 0.25°. The results showed that, in general, the spatial pattern of the Mediterranean source’s contribution to precipitation, unlike climatology, is similar during extreme precipitation years in the regions under study. However, while the Mediterranean Sea is usually not an important source of climatological precipitation for some European regions, it is a significant source during extreme precipitation years.

Normalization and calibration of geostationary satellite radiances for the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project

Science.gov (United States)

Desormeaux, Yves; Rossow, William B.; Brest, Christopher L.; Campbell, G. G.

1993-01-01

Procedures are described for normalizing the radiometric calibration of image radiances obtained from geostationary weather satellites that contributed data to the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project. The key step is comparison of coincident and collocated measurements made by each satellite and the concurrent AVHRR on the 'afternoon' NOAA polar-orbiting weather satellite at the same viewing geometry. The results of this comparison allow transfer of the AVHRR absolute calibration, which has been established over the whole series, to the radiometers on the geostationary satellites. Results are given for Meteosat-2, 3, and 4, for GOES-5, 6, and 7, for GMS-2, 3, and 4 and for Insat-1B. The relative stability of the calibrations of these radiance data is estimated to be within +/- 3 percent; the uncertainty of the absolute calibrations is estimated to be less than 10 percent. The remaining uncertainties are at least two times smaller than for the original radiance data.

RCA's regional industrial project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ali, A.T.

1988-01-01

The Regional Cooperation Agreement (RCA) for Research Development and Training Related to Nuclear Science and Technology, formulated under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), came into force in June 1972. The overall objective of RCA is to promote technical cooperation among the developing and developed countries in the Asia Pacific region in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and related technology. Currently, the biggest project under RCA is the Regional Project on the Industrial Applications of Isotopes and Radiation Technology for Asia and the Pacific. The project was established in 1982 for a period of five years and was completed in December 1986. The first phase of the project has generated a high degree of awareness on the industrial potential of isotopes and radiation technology throughout the region; produced a cadre of trained manpower in all areas covered by the project; identified the expertise available in the region; and developed in the region, a unique network of people and institutions involved with the utilization of isotope and radiation technology. A Phase II of the project, which cover all but one of the sub-projects under Phase I, was approved in early 1987 for another five years until 1991. (Nogami, K.)

Comparison of TRMM and Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Precipitation Analyses

Science.gov (United States)

Adler, Robert F.; Huffman, George J.; Bolvin, David; Nelkin, Eric; Curtis, Scott

1999-01-01

This paper describes recent results of using Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) (launched in November 1997) information as the key calibration tool in a merged analysis on a 1 x 1' latitude/longitude monthly scale based on multiple satellite sources and raingauge analyses. The TRMM-based product is compared with the community-based Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) results. The long-term GPCP analysis is compared to the new TRMM-based analysis which uses the most accurate TRMM information to calibrate the estimates from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) and geosynchronous IR observations and merges those estimates together with the TRMM and gauge information to produce accurate rainfall estimates with the increased sampling provided by the combined satellite information. The comparison with TRMM results on a month-to-month basis should clarify the strengths and weaknesses of the long-term GPCP product in the tropics and point to how to improve the monitoring analysis. Preliminary results from the TRMM merged satellite analysis indicates fairly close agreement with the GPCP estimates. The GPCP analysis is done at 2.5 degree latitude/longitude resolution and interpolated to a 1 degree grid for comparison with the TRMM analysis. As expected the same features are evident in both panels, but there are subtle differences in the magnitudes. Focusing on the Pacific Ocean Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) one can see the TRMM-based estimates having higher peak values and lower values in the ITCZ periphery. These attributes also show up in the statistics, where GPCP>TRMM at low values (below 10 mm/d) and TRMM>GPCP at high values (greater than 15 mm/d). The area in the Indian Ocean which shows consistently higher values of TRMM over GPCP needs to be examined carefully to determine if the lack of geosynchronous data has led to a difference in the two analyses. By the time of the meeting over a year of TRMM products will be available for

A climatological model for risk computations incorporating site- specific dry deposition influences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Droppo, J.G. Jr.

1991-07-01

A gradient-flux dry deposition module was developed for use in a climatological atmospheric transport model, the Multimedia Environmental Pollutant Assessment System (MEPAS). The atmospheric pathway model computes long-term average contaminant air concentration and surface deposition patterns surrounding a potential release site incorporating location-specific dry deposition influences. Gradient-flux formulations are used to incorporate site and regional data in the dry deposition module for this atmospheric sector-average climatological model. Application of these formulations provide an effective means of accounting for local surface roughness in deposition computations. Linkage to a risk computation module resulted in a need for separate regional and specific surface deposition computations. 13 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs

Trends in the Indian Ocean Climatology due to anthropogenic induced global warming

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Meyer, AA

2009-09-01

Full Text Available clearly show that due to global warming the South West Indian Ocean Climatology has been changing and that this changing trend will continue into the future as global warming continues. The impacts of regional oceanic climate change on the regions coastal...

PCA and vTEC climatology at midnight over mid-latitude regions

Science.gov (United States)

Natali, M. P.; Meza, A.

2017-12-01

The effect of the thermospheric vertical neutral wind on vertical total electron content (vTEC) variations including longitudinal anomaly, remaining winter anomaly, mid-latitude summer night anomaly, and semiannual anomaly is studied at mid-latitude regions around zero magnetic declination at midnight during high solar activity. By using the principal component analysis (PCA) numerical technique, this work studies the spatial and temporal variations of the ionosphere at midnight over mid-latitude regions during 2000-2002. PCA is applied to a time series of global vTEC maps produced by the International Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Service. Four regions were studied in particular, each located at mid-latitude and approximately centered at zero magnetic declination, with two in the northern hemisphere and two in southern hemisphere, and all are located near and far from geomagnetic poles in each case. This technique provides an effective method to analyze the main ionospheric variabilities at mid-latitudes. PCA is also applied to the vTEC computed using the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) 2012 model, to analyze the capability of this model to represent ionospheric variabilities at mid-latitude. Also, the Horizontal Wind Model 2007 (HWM07) is used to improve our climatology interpretation, by analyzing the relationship between vTEC and thermospheric wind, both quantitatively and qualitatively. At midnight, the behavior of mean vTEC values strongly responds to vertical wind variation, experiencing a decrease of about 10-15% with the action of the positive vertical component of the field-aligned neutral wind lasting for 2 h in all regions except for Oceania. Notable results include: a significant increase toward higher latitudes during summer in the South America and Asia regions, associated with the mid-latitude summer night anomaly, and an increase toward higher latitudes in winter in the North America and Oceania regions, highlighting the

The Impact of Climatological Conditions on Low Enriched Uranium Loading Station Operations for the HEU Blend Down Project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chang, R.C.

2002-01-01

A computer model was developed using COREsim to perform a time motion study for the Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) Loading Station operations. The project is to blend Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) with Natural Uranium (NU) to produce LEU to be shipped to Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for further processing. To cope with a project cost reduction, the LEU Loading Station concept has changed from an enclosed building with air-conditioning to a partially enclosed building without air conditioning. The LEU Loading Station is within a radiological contaminated area; two pairs of coveralls and negative pressure respirator are required. As a result, inclement weather conditions, especially heat stress, will affect and impact the LEU loading operations. The purposes of the study are to determine the climatological impacts on LEU Loading operations, resources required for committed throughputs, and to find out the optimum process pathways for multi crews working simultaneously in the space-lim ited LEU Loading Station

Tennessee Valley Total and Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Climatology Comparison

Science.gov (United States)

Buechler, Dennis; Blakeslee, R. J.; Hall, J. M.; McCaul, E. W.

2008-01-01

The North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (NALMA) has been in operation since 2001 and consists often VHF receivers deployed across northern Alabama. The NALMA locates sources of impulsive VHF radio signals from total lightning by accurately measuring the time that the signals arrive at the different receiving stations. The sources detected are then clustered into flashes by applying spatially and temporally constraints. This study examines the total lightning climatology of the region derived from NALMA and compares it to the cloud-to-ground (CG) climatology derived from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) The presentation compares the total and CG lightning trends for monthly, daily, and hourly periods.

Regional rainfall climatologies derived from Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) data

Science.gov (United States)

Negri, Andrew J.; Adler, Robert F.; Nelkin, Eric J.; Huffman, George J.

1994-01-01

Climatologies of convective precipitation were derived from passive microwave observations from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager using a scattering-based algorithm of Adler et al. Data were aggregated over periods of 3-5 months using data from 4 to 5 years. Data were also stratified by satellite overpass times (primarily 06 00 and 18 00 local time). Four regions (Mexico, Amazonia, western Africa, and the western equatorial Pacific Ocean (TOGA COARE area) were chosen for their meteorological interest and relative paucity of conventional observations. The strong diurnal variation over Mexico and the southern United States was the most striking aspect of the climatologies. Pronounced morning maxima occured offshore, often in concativities in the coastline, the result of the increased convergence caused by the coastline shape. The major feature of the evening rain field was a linear-shaped maximum along the western slope of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Topography exerted a strong control on the rainfall in other areas, particularly near the Nicaragua/Honduras border and in Guatemala, where maxima in excess of 700 mm/month were located adjacent to local maxima in terrain. The correlation between the estimates and monthly gage data over the southern United States was low (0.45), due mainly to poor temporal sampling in any month and an inadequate sampling of the diurnal cycle. Over the Amazon Basin the differences in morning versus evening rainfall were complex, with an alternating series of morning/evening maxima aligned southwest to northeast from the Andes to the northeast Brazilian coast. A real extent of rainfall in Amazonia was slightly higher in the evening, but a maximum in morning precipitation was found on the Amazon River just east of Manaus. Precipitation over the water in the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) north of Brazil was more pronounced in the morning, and a pronounced land-/sea-breeze circulation was found along the northeast coast of Brazil

Climatology and trends of summer high temperature days in India ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

patterns, there is clear change in climatological mean and coefficient of variation of HT days in a ... regions of India probably from mid 1990s. ... in extreme climate events are more sensitive to cli- ... C since mid-1990s in south, east, north.

climatology of air mass trajectories and aerosol optical thickness ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

George

We present in this paper a climatological study of back trajectories of air masses ... obtained by inversion of photometric measurements of AERONET network. ... the arid Sahel region adjacent in the north to the Sahara ... the city a strategic position in the study of the .... atmospheric emergencies, diagnostic case studies and.

U.S. Local Climatological Data (LCD)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Local Climatological Data (LCD) are summaries of climatological conditions from airport and other prominent weather stations managed by NWS, FAA, and DOD. The...

A Global Ozone Climatology from Ozone Soundings via Trajectory Mapping: A Stratospheric Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, J. J.; Tarasick, D. W.; Fioletov, V. E.; McLinden, C.; Zhao, T.; Gong, S.; Sioris, G.; Jin, J. J.; Liu, G.; Moeini, O.

2013-01-01

This study explores a domain-filling trajectory approach to generate a global ozone climatology from sparse ozonesonde data. Global ozone soundings of 51,898 profiles at 116 stations over 44 years (1965-2008) are used, from which forward and backward trajectories are performed for 4 days, driven by a set of meteorological reanalysis data. Ozone mixing ratios of each sounding from the surface to 26 km altitude are assigned to the entire path along the trajectory. The resulting global ozone climatology is archived monthly for five decades from the 1960s to the 2000s with grids of 5 degree 5 degree 1 km (latitude, longitude, and altitude). It is also archived yearly from 1965 to 2008. This climatology is validated at 20 ozonesonde stations by comparing the actual ozone sounding profile with that found through the trajectories, using the ozone soundings at all the stations except one being tested. The two sets of profiles are in good agreement, both individually with correlation coefficients between 0.975 and 0.998 and root mean square (RMS) differences of 87 to 482 ppbv, and overall with a correlation coefficient of 0.991 and an RMS of 224 ppbv. The ozone climatology is also compared with two sets of satellite data, from the Satellite Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) and the Optical Spectrography and InfraRed Imager System (OSIRIS). Overall, the ozone climatology compares well with SAGE and OSIRIS data by both seasonal and zonal means. The mean difference is generally under 20 above 15 km. The comparison is better in the northern hemisphere, where there are more ozonesonde stations, than in the southern hemisphere; it is also better in the middle and high latitudes than in the tropics, where assimilated winds are imperfect in some regions. This ozone climatology can capture known features in the stratosphere, as well as seasonal and decadal variations of these features. Furthermore, it provides a wealth of detail about longitudinal variations in the stratosphere such

Global two-channel AVHRR aerosol climatology: effects of stratospheric aerosols and preliminary comparisons with MODIS and MISR retrievals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Geogdzhayev, Igor V.; Mishchenko, Michael I.; Liu Li; Remer, Lorraine

2004-01-01

We present an update on the status of the global climatology of the aerosol column optical thickness and Angstrom exponent derived from channel-1 and -2 radiances of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) in the framework of the Global Aerosol Climatology Project (GACP). The latest version of the climatology covers the period from July 1983 to September 2001 and is based on an adjusted value of the diffuse component of the ocean reflectance as derived from extensive comparisons with ship sun-photometer data. We use the updated GACP climatology and Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) data to analyze how stratospheric aerosols from major volcanic eruptions can affect the GACP aerosol product. One possible retrieval strategy based on the AVHRR channel-1 and -2 data alone is to infer both the stratospheric and the tropospheric aerosol optical thickness while assuming fixed microphysical models for both aerosol components. The second approach is to use the SAGE stratospheric aerosol data in order to constrain the AVHRR retrieval algorithm. We demonstrate that the second approach yields a consistent long-term record of the tropospheric aerosol optical thickness and Angstrom exponent. Preliminary comparisons of the GACP aerosol product with MODerate resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) and Multiangle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer aerosol retrievals show reasonable agreement, the GACP global monthly optical thickness being lower than the MODIS one by approximately 0.03. Larger differences are observed on a regional scale. Comparisons of the GACP and MODIS Angstrom exponent records are less conclusive and require further analysis

Climatology of salt transitions and implications for stone weathering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grossi, C.M.; Brimblecombe, P.; Menendez, B.; Benavente, D.; Harris, I.; Deque, M.

2011-01-01

This work introduces the notion of salt climatology. It shows how climate affects salt thermodynamic and the potential to relate long-term salt damage to climate types. It mainly focuses on specific sites in Western Europe, which include some cities in France and Peninsular Spain. Salt damage was parameterised using the number of dissolution-crystallisation events for unhydrated (sodium chloride) and hydrated (sodium sulphate) systems. These phase transitions have been calculated using daily temperature and relative humidity from observation meteorological data and Climate Change models' output (HadCM3 and ARPEGE). Comparing the number of transitions with meteorological seasonal data allowed us to develop techniques to estimate the frequency of salt transitions based on the local climatology. Results show that it is possible to associate the Koeppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. Temperate fully humid climates seem to offer the highest potential for salt damage and possible higher number of transitions in summer. Climates with dry summers tend to show a lesser frequency of transitions in summer. The analysis of temperature, precipitation and relative output from Climate Change models suggests changes in the Koeppen-Geiger climate types and changes in the patterns of salt damage. For instance, West Europe areas with a fully humid climate may change to a more Mediterranean like or dry climates, and consequently the seasonality of different salt transitions. The accuracy and reliability of the projections might be improved by simultaneously running multiple climate models (ensembles). - Research highlights: → We introduce the notion of salt climatology for heritage conservation. → Climate affects salt thermodynamics on building materials. → We associate Koeppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. → We offer future projections of salt damage in Western Europe due to climate change. → Humid climate areas may change to

Climatology of salt transitions and implications for stone weathering

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Grossi, C.M., E-mail: c.grossi-sampedro@uea.ac.uk [School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ (United Kingdom); Brimblecombe, P. [School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ (United Kingdom); Menendez, B. [Geosciences et Environnement Cergy, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise 95031 Cergy-Pontoise cedex (France); Benavente, D. [Lab. Petrologia Aplicada, Unidad Asociada UA-CSIC, Dpto. Ciencias de la Tierra y del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante 03080 (Spain); Harris, I. [Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ (United Kingdom); Deque, M. [Meteo-France/CNRM, CNRS/GAME, 42 Avenue Coriolis, F-31057 Toulouse, Cedex 01 (France)

2011-06-01

This work introduces the notion of salt climatology. It shows how climate affects salt thermodynamic and the potential to relate long-term salt damage to climate types. It mainly focuses on specific sites in Western Europe, which include some cities in France and Peninsular Spain. Salt damage was parameterised using the number of dissolution-crystallisation events for unhydrated (sodium chloride) and hydrated (sodium sulphate) systems. These phase transitions have been calculated using daily temperature and relative humidity from observation meteorological data and Climate Change models' output (HadCM3 and ARPEGE). Comparing the number of transitions with meteorological seasonal data allowed us to develop techniques to estimate the frequency of salt transitions based on the local climatology. Results show that it is possible to associate the Koeppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. Temperate fully humid climates seem to offer the highest potential for salt damage and possible higher number of transitions in summer. Climates with dry summers tend to show a lesser frequency of transitions in summer. The analysis of temperature, precipitation and relative output from Climate Change models suggests changes in the Koeppen-Geiger climate types and changes in the patterns of salt damage. For instance, West Europe areas with a fully humid climate may change to a more Mediterranean like or dry climates, and consequently the seasonality of different salt transitions. The accuracy and reliability of the projections might be improved by simultaneously running multiple climate models (ensembles). - Research highlights: {yields} We introduce the notion of salt climatology for heritage conservation. {yields} Climate affects salt thermodynamics on building materials. {yields} We associate Koeppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. {yields} We offer future projections of salt damage in Western Europe due to climate change. {yields} Humid

Climatology and Landfall of Tropical Cyclones in the South- West ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Abstract—The climatology of cyclone formation and behaviour in the South-West Indian Ocean, including landfall in Mozambique and Madagascar, has been investigated. The records used were obtained by merging track data from the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre with data from La Reunion – Regional Specialised ...

Evaluation of global climate models for Indian monsoon climatology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kodra, Evan; Ganguly, Auroop R; Ghosh, Subimal

2012-01-01

The viability of global climate models for forecasting the Indian monsoon is explored. Evaluation and intercomparison of model skills are employed to assess the reliability of individual models and to guide model selection strategies. Two dominant and unique patterns of Indian monsoon climatology are trends in maximum temperature and periodicity in total rainfall observed after 30 yr averaging over India. An examination of seven models and their ensembles reveals that no single model or model selection strategy outperforms the rest. The single-best model for the periodicity of Indian monsoon rainfall is the only model that captures a low-frequency natural climate oscillator thought to dictate the periodicity. The trend in maximum temperature, which most models are thought to handle relatively better, is best captured through a multimodel average compared to individual models. The results suggest a need to carefully evaluate individual models and model combinations, in addition to physical drivers where possible, for regional projections from global climate models. (letter)

What spatial scales are believable for climate model projections of sea surface temperature?

Science.gov (United States)

Kwiatkowski, Lester; Halloran, Paul R.; Mumby, Peter J.; Stephenson, David B.

2014-09-01

Earth system models (ESMs) provide high resolution simulations of variables such as sea surface temperature (SST) that are often used in off-line biological impact models. Coral reef modellers have used such model outputs extensively to project both regional and global changes to coral growth and bleaching frequency. We assess model skill at capturing sub-regional climatologies and patterns of historical warming. This study uses an established wavelet-based spatial comparison technique to assess the skill of the coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 models to capture spatial SST patterns in coral regions. We show that models typically have medium to high skill at capturing climatological spatial patterns of SSTs within key coral regions, with model skill typically improving at larger spatial scales (≥4°). However models have much lower skill at modelling historical warming patters and are shown to often perform no better than chance at regional scales (e.g. Southeast Asian) and worse than chance at finer scales (coral bleaching frequency and other marine processes linked to SST warming.

Radar-based summer precipitation climatology of the Czech Republic

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Bližňák, Vojtěch; Kašpar, Marek; Müller, Miloslav

2018-01-01

Roč. 38, č. 2 (2018), s. 677-691 ISSN 0899-8418 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA17-23773S; GA MZe QJ1520265 Institutional support: RVO:68378289 Keywords : weather radar * rain gauges * adjustment * precipitation climatology * Czech Republic Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology OBOR OECD: Meteorology and atmospheric sciences Impact factor: 3.760, year: 2016 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.5202/full

NORSEWInD satellite wind climatology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Badger, Merete; Mouche, Alexis

The EU-NORSEWInD project www.norsewind.eu has taken place from August 2008 to July 2012 (4 years). NORSEWInD is short for Northern Seas Wind Index database. In the project ocean surface wind observations from space have been retrieved, processed and analysed. The overall aim of the work...... is to provide new offshore wind climatology map for the entire area of interest based on satellite remote sensing. This has been based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) from Envisat ASAR using 9000 scenes re-processed with ECMWF wind direction and CMOD-IFR. The number of overlapping samples range from 450...... in the Irish Sea to more than 1200 in most of the Baltic Sea. Wind resource statistics include maps at 2 km spatial resolution of mean wind speed, Weibull A and k, and energy density at 10 m above sea level. Uncertainty estimates on the number of available samples for each of the four parameters are presented...

Estimating total solar radiation in different climatological of region in Iran using cloud factor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jafarpour, Kh.; Karshenas, M.

2002-01-01

Iran is among the countries located on the belt pertaining to lands with a high rate of solar insolation. Statistics shows that, for instance, the solar energy which hi ted the Iranian contention al land just in the year of 1990, was more than 1600 times that of the energy exported by Iran in the same year. This high rate of solar insolation, on the one hand and the limitation of fossil-fuel reservoirs (specially, utilizing energy from such sources is polluting the environment) on the other hand, show that harnessing the solar energy is not anymore a choice of decision but rather on obligation. To fulfill this obligation one needs solar insolation data to be able to design and evaluate solar energy utilizing systems and other uses under different climatological conditions of Iran. As a first step, this article provides total solar radiation data for various cities in Iran under different climatological conditions using cloud factor as a parameter

Regional climate projections for Northeast India: an appraisal from CORDEX South Asia experiment

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, D.; Dimri, A. P.

2017-11-01

An appraisal of the recent changes in the present climate (1970-2005) followed by the possible future (2006-2100) changes in the climate has been carried out in the current study using the observations and regional climate model (REMO) over the Northeast Indian region. The regional climate model simulation has been used from the COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX) South Asia framework. A consistent warming for the winter (December, January, and February (DJF)) and post-monsoon (October and November (ON)) has been observed for the present climate especially in the northern and eastern parts of the region. The changes in the near future (2020-2049) and far future (2070-2099) temperature climatology suggest a rise in temperature by 3-8 °C across different representative concentration pathways (RCPs). The rate of long-term (1970-2099) increase in temperature has been found ranging between 0.01 and 0.07 °C/year across the region in the least emission (RCP2.6) to strongest emission (RCP8.5) scenarios. The daily mean precipitation statistics suggests an overall increasing trends of precipitation during the pre-monsoon (March, April, and May (MAM)) for the present across the region with a mixed trend in other seasons. A change in daily mean precipitation ranging from - 60% (during winter) to + 40% during post-monsoon has been projected by the model across different RCPs. RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 show a strong deficit in precipitation in the warmer climate across the region as compared to RCP2.6. This fact is also confirmed from the long-term trend of precipitation where a consistent decreasing trend dominates in the RCP4.5- and RCP8.5-simulated precipitations by the end of the twenty-first century. A large model bias in temperature and precipitation along with high amount of uncertainty is associated with the model simulations; thus, in order to use the projections, a more careful approach to improve the utility of downscaled product should be adopted.

New dynamic NNORSY ozone profile climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Kaifel, A. K.; Felder, M.; Declercq, C.; Lambert, J.-C.

2012-01-01

Climatological ozone profile data are widely used as a-priori information for total ozone using DOAS type retrievals as well as for ozone profile retrieval using optimal estimation, for data assimilation or evaluation of 3-D chemistry-transport models and a lot of other applications in atmospheric sciences and remote sensing. For most applications it is important that the climatology represents not only long term mean values but also the links between ozone and dynamic input parameters. These dynamic input parameters should be easily accessible from auxiliary datasets or easily measureable, and obviously should have a high correlation with ozone. For ozone profile these parameters are mainly total ozone column and temperature profile data. This was the outcome of a user consultation carried out in the framework of developing a new, dynamic ozone profile climatology. The new ozone profile climatology is based on the Neural Network Ozone Retrieval System (NNORSY) widely used for ozone profile retrieval from UV and IR satellite sounder data. NNORSY allows implicit modelling of any non-linear correspondence between input parameters (predictors) and ozone profile target vector. This paper presents the approach, setup and validation of a new family of ozone profile climatologies with static as well as dynamic input parameters (total ozone and temperature profile). The neural network training relies on ozone profile measurement data of well known quality provided by ground based (ozonesondes) and satellite based (SAGE II, HALOE, and POAM-III) measurements over the years 1995-2007. In total, four different combinations (modes) for input parameters (date, geolocation, total ozone column and temperature profile) are available. The geophysical validation spans from pole to pole using independent ozonesonde, lidar and satellite data (ACE-FTS, AURA-MLS) for individual and time series comparisons as well as for analysing the vertical and meridian structure of different modes of

Critical analysis of documentary sources for Historical Climatology of Northern Portugal (17th-19th centuries)

Science.gov (United States)

Amorim, Inês; Sousa Silva, Luís; Garcia, João Carlos

2017-04-01

Critical analysis of documentary sources for Historical Climatology of Northern Portugal (17th-19th centuries) Inês Amorim CITCEM, Department of History, Political and International Studies, U. of Porto, Portugal. Luís Sousa Silva CITCEM, PhD Fellowship - FCT. João Carlos Garcia CIUHCT, Geography Department, U. of Porto, Portugal. The first major national project on Historical Climatology in Portugal, called "KLIMHIST: Reconstruction and model simulations of past climate in Portugal using documentary and early instrumental sources (17th-19th centuries)", ended in September 2015, coordinated by Maria João Alcoforado. This project began in March 2012 and counted on an interdisciplinary team of researchers from four Portuguese institutions (Centre of Geographical Studies, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, University of Porto, and University of Évora), from different fields of knowledge (Geography, History, Biology, Climatology and Meteorology). The team networked and collaborated with other international research groups on Climate Change and Historical Climatology, resulting in several publications. This project aimed to reconstruct thermal and rainfall patterns in Portugal between the 17th and 19th centuries, as well as identify the main hydrometeorological extremes that occurred over that period. The basic methodology consisted in combining information from different types of anthropogenic sources (descriptive and instrumental) and natural sources (tree rings and geothermal holes), so as to develop climate change models of the past. The data collected were stored in a digital database, which can be searched by source, date, location and type of event. This database, which will be made publically available soon, contains about 3500 weather/climate-related records, which have begun to be studied, processed and published. Following this seminal project, other initiatives have taken place in Portugal in the area of Historical Climatology, namely a Ph

Effects of undetected data quality issues on climatological analyses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Hunziker

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Systematic data quality issues may occur at various stages of the data generation process. They may affect large fractions of observational datasets and remain largely undetected with standard data quality control. This study investigates the effects of such undetected data quality issues on the results of climatological analyses. For this purpose, we quality controlled daily observations of manned weather stations from the Central Andean area with a standard and an enhanced approach. The climate variables analysed are minimum and maximum temperature and precipitation. About 40 % of the observations are inappropriate for the calculation of monthly temperature means and precipitation sums due to data quality issues. These quality problems undetected with the standard quality control approach strongly affect climatological analyses, since they reduce the correlation coefficients of station pairs, deteriorate the performance of data homogenization methods, increase the spread of individual station trends, and significantly bias regional temperature trends. Our findings indicate that undetected data quality issues are included in important and frequently used observational datasets and hence may affect a high number of climatological studies. It is of utmost importance to apply comprehensive and adequate data quality control approaches on manned weather station records in order to avoid biased results and large uncertainties.

Cloud-to-ground lightning over Mexico and adjacent oceanic regions. A preliminary climatology using the WWLLN dataset

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kucienska, B.; Raga, G.B. [Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (Mexico). Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera; Rodriguez, O. [Instituto Mexicano de Tecnologia del Agua, Morelos (Mexico)

2010-07-01

This work constitutes the first climatological study of lightning over Mexico and adjacent oceanic areas for the period 2005-2009. Spatial and temporal distributions of cloud to ground lightning are presented and the processes that contribute to the lightning variability are analysed. The data are retrieved from theWorldWide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) dataset. The current WWLL network includes 40 stations which cover much of the globe and detect very low frequency radiation (''spherics'') associated with lightning. The spatial distribution of the average yearly lightning over the continental region of Mexico shows the influence of orographic forcing in producing convective clouds with high lightning activity. However, a very high number of strikes is also observed in the States of Tabasco and Campeche, which are low-lying areas. This maximum is related to the climatological maximum of precipitation for the country and it may be associated with a region of persistent low-level convergence and convection in the southern portion of the Gulf of Mexico. The maps of correlation between rainfall and lightning provide insight into the microphysical processes occurring within the clouds. The maritime clouds close to the coastline exhibit similar properties to continental clouds as they produce very high lightning activity. The seasonal cycle of lightning registered by WWLLN is consistent with the LIS/OTD dataset for the selected regions. In terms of the annual distribution of cloud-to-ground strikes, July, August and September exhibit the highest number of strikes over continental Mexico. The diurnal cycle indicates that the maximum number of strikes over the continent is observed between 6 and 9 p.m. LT. The surrounding oceanic regions were subdivided into four distinct sectors: Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Subtropical Pacific and Tropical Pacific. The Gulf of Mexico has the broadest seasonal distribution, since during winter lightning associated

Santa Ana Winds of Southern California: Their Climatology and Variability Spanning 6.5 Decades from Regional Dynamical Modelling

Science.gov (United States)

Guzman-Morales, J.; Gershunov, A.

2015-12-01

Santa Ana Winds (SAWs) are an integral feature of the regional climate of Southern California/Northern Baja California region. In spite of their tremendous episodic impacts on the health, economy and mood of the region, climate-scale behavior of SAW is poorly understood. In the present work, we identify SAWs in mesoscale dynamical downscaling of a global reanalysis product and construct an hourly SAW catalogue spanning 65 years. We describe the long-term SAW climatology at relevant time-space resolutions, i.e, we developed local and regional SAW indices and analyse their variability on hourly, daily, annual, and multi-decadal timescales. Local and regional SAW indices are validated with available anemometer observations. Characteristic behaviors are revealed, e.g. the SAW intensity-duration relationship. At interdecadal time scales, we find that seasonal SAW activity is sensitive to prominent large-scale low-frequency modes of climate variability rooted in the tropical and north Pacific ocean-atmosphere system that are also known to affect the hydroclimate of this region. Lastly, we do not find any long-term trend in SAW frequency and intensity as previously reported. Instead, we identify a significant long-term trend in SAW behavior whereby contribution of extreme SAW events to total seasonal SAW activity has been increasing at the expense of moderate events. These findings motivate further investigation on SAW evolution in future climate and its impact on wildfires.

Regional climate projection based on RCP scenarios in the CORDEX East Asia Domain Using RegCM4

Science.gov (United States)

Suh, M. S.; Oh, S. G.; Cha, D. H.; Kang, H. S.

2012-04-01

Regional climate projection data is essential to the adaptation and risk management for the expected climate change. In this stduy, we reproduced regional climate over CORDEX East Asia for 72 years from 1979 to 2050 with 50-km resolution using the latest regional climate model version 4, RegCM4, driven by HadGEM2-AO with about 135-km resolution under Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5/4.5. Simulation skills of RegCM4 for the present climate (1980-2005, spin up time: 1979) over CORDEX East Asia are evaluated with CRU-TS (Climate Research Unit Time-Series) 3.0 and GPCP (Global Precipitation Climatology Project). And KMA ground observation data are also used for the detailed assessment of RegCM4 over South Korea. The evaluation results showed that RegCM4 reasonalbly simulated the spatial distribution, and inter-annual and seasonal variations of surface air temperature. However, it showed a non-negligible systemartic biases in the precipitation. In particular, the rainband accompanied by the seasonal march of East Asian summer monsoon was simulated too southward, below 30° N comparing to the GPCP. As a reulst, summer precipitation over South Korea and Japan island was significantly underestimated. Under RCP8.5 (RCP4.5) scenario, annual mean temperature over the CORDEX East Asia is expected to increase by + 1.6 oC(+1.4oC) above the present level (1980-2005) by the end of the future simulation period. Most of the regions (South-Korea, South-China, North-China, India, Japan, Mongolia) show the increaseing trend of surface air temperature. On the other hand, the future changes of precipitation are not systemaic at the most of regions and seasons. More detailed results including projected regional climate change will be discussed in the presentation.

Climatology of sea breezes along the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia

KAUST Repository

Khan, Basit; Abualnaja, Yasser; Al-Subhi, Abdullah M.; Nellayaputhenpeedika, Mohammedali; Nellikkattu Thody, Manoj; Sturman, Andrew P.

2018-01-01

and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are used to investigate the climatology of sea breezes over the eastern side of the Red Sea region. Results show existence of separate sea breeze systems along different segments of the Red Sea coastline. Based on the physical

Historical Climatology Series

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Historical Climatology Series (HCS) is a set of climate-related publications published by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center beginning in 1978. HCS is...

The global historical climatology network: Long-term monthly temperature, precipitation, and pressure data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vose, R.S.; Schmoyer, R.L.; Peterson, T.C.; Steurer, P.M.; Heim, R.R. Jr.; Karl, T.R.; Eischeid, J.K.

1992-01-01

Interest in global climate change has risen dramatically during the past several decades. In a similar fashion, the number of data sets available to study global change has also increased. Unfortunately, many different organizations and researchers have compiled these data sets, making it confusing and time consuming for individuals to acquire the most comprehensive data. In response to this rapid growth in the number of global data sets, DOE's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) established the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) project. The purpose of this project is to compile an improved data set of long-term monthly mean temperature, precipitation, sea level pressure, and station pressure for as dense a network of global stations as possible. Specifically, the GHCN project seeks to consolidate the numerous preexisting national-, regional-, and global-scale data sets into a single global data base; to subject the data to rigorous quality control; and to update, enhance, and distribute the data set at regular intervals. The purpose of this paper is to describe the compilation and contents of the GHCN data base (i.e., GHCN Version 1.0)

Reference Climatological Stations

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Reference Climatological Stations (RCS) network represents the first effort by NOAA to create and maintain a nationwide network of stations located only in areas...

Implementing Climate Services in Peru: CLIMANDES Project

Science.gov (United States)

Lavado-Casimiro, Waldo; Mauchle, Fabian; Diaz, Amelia; Seiz, Gabriela; Rubli, Alex; Rossa, Andrea; Rosas, Gabriela; Ita, Niceforo; Calle, Victoria; Villegas, Esequiel; Ambrosetti, Paolo; Brönnimann, Stefan; Hunziker, Stefan; Jacques, Martin; Croci-Maspoli, Mischa; Konzelmann, Thomas; Gubler, Stefanie; Rohrer, Mario

2014-05-01

The climate variability and change will have increasing influence on the economic and social development of all countries and regions, such as the Andes in Latin America. The CLIMANDES project (Climate services to support decision-making in the Andean Region) will address these issues in Peru. CLIMANDES supports the WMO Regional Training Centre (RTC) in Lima, which is responsible for the training of specialized human resources in meteorology and climatology in the South American Andes (Module 1). Furthermore, CLIMANDES will provide high-quality climate services to inform policy makers in the Andean region (Module 2). It is coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and constitutes a pilot project under the umbrella of the WMO-led Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS). The project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and runs from August 2012 - July 2015. Module 1 focuses on restructuring the curricula of Meteorology at the La Molina Agraria University (UNALM) and applied training of meteorologists of the Peruvian National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology (SENAMHI). In Module 2, the skills will be shared and developed in the production and delivery of high-quality climate products and services tailored to the needs of the decision makers in the pilot regions Cusco and Junín. Such services will benefit numerous sectors including agriculture, education, health, tourism, energy, transport and others. The goals of the modules 1 and 2 will be achieved through the collaboration of the UNALM, SENAMHI and the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss, with the support of the University of Bern (UNIBE), Meteodat and WMO.

Precipitation Climatology over Mediterranean Basin from Ten Years of TRMM Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Mehta, Amita V.; Yang, Song

2008-01-01

Climatological features of mesoscale rain activities over the Mediterranean region between 5 W-40 E and 28 N-48 N are examined using the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B42 and 2A25 rain products. The 3B42 rainrates at 3-hourly, 0.25 deg x 0.25 deg spatial resolution for the last 10 years (January 1998 to July 2007) are used to form and analyze the 5-day mean and monthly mean climatology of rainfall. Results show considerable regional and seasonal differences of rainfall over the Mediterranean Region. The maximum rainfall (3-5 mm/day) occurs over the mountain regions of Europe, while the minimum rainfall is observed over North Africa (approximately 0.5 mm/day). The main rainy season over the Mediterranean Sea extends from October to March, with maximum rainfall occurring during November-December. Over the Mediterranean Sea, an average rainrate of approximately 1-2 mm/day is observed, but during the rainy season there is 20% larger rainfall over the western Mediterranean Sea than that over the eastern Mediterranean Sea. During the rainy season, mesoscale rain systems generally propagate from west to east and from north to south over the Mediterranean region, likely to be associated with Mediterranean cyclonic disturbances resulting from interactions among large-scale circulation, orography, and land-sea temperature contrast.

An assessment of the quality of aerosol retrievals over the Red Sea and evaluation of the climatological cloud-free dust direct radiative effect in the region

KAUST Repository

Brindley, H.

2015-10-20

Ground-based and satellite observations are used in conjunction with the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM) to assess climatological aerosol loading and the associated cloud-free aerosol direct radiative effect (DRE) over the Red Sea. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) instruments are first evaluated via comparison with ship-based observations. Correlations are typically better than 0.9 with very small root-mean-square and bias differences. Calculations of the DRE along the ship cruises using RRTM also show good agreement with colocated estimates from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget instrument if the aerosol asymmetry parameter is adjusted to account for the presence of large particles. A monthly climatology of AOD over the Red Sea is then created from 5 years of SEVIRI retrievals. This shows enhanced aerosol loading and a distinct north to south gradient across the basin in the summer relative to the winter months. The climatology is used with RRTM to estimate the DRE at the top and bottom of the atmosphere and the atmospheric absorption due to dust aerosol. These climatological estimates indicate that although longwave effects can reach tens of W m−2, shortwave cooling typically dominates the net radiative effect over the Sea, being particularly pronounced in the summer, reaching 120 W m−2 at the surface. The spatial gradient in summertime AOD is reflected in the radiative effect at the surface and in associated differential heating by aerosol within the atmosphere above the Sea. This asymmetric effect is expected to exert a significant influence on the regional atmospheric and oceanic circulation.

An assessment of the quality of aerosol retrievals over the Red Sea and evaluation of the climatological cloud-free dust direct radiative effect in the region

KAUST Repository

Brindley, H.; Osipov, Sergey; Bantges, R.; Smirnov, A.; Banks, J.; Levy, R.; Jish Prakash, P.; Stenchikov, Georgiy L.

2015-01-01

Ground-based and satellite observations are used in conjunction with the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM) to assess climatological aerosol loading and the associated cloud-free aerosol direct radiative effect (DRE) over the Red Sea. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) instruments are first evaluated via comparison with ship-based observations. Correlations are typically better than 0.9 with very small root-mean-square and bias differences. Calculations of the DRE along the ship cruises using RRTM also show good agreement with colocated estimates from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget instrument if the aerosol asymmetry parameter is adjusted to account for the presence of large particles. A monthly climatology of AOD over the Red Sea is then created from 5 years of SEVIRI retrievals. This shows enhanced aerosol loading and a distinct north to south gradient across the basin in the summer relative to the winter months. The climatology is used with RRTM to estimate the DRE at the top and bottom of the atmosphere and the atmospheric absorption due to dust aerosol. These climatological estimates indicate that although longwave effects can reach tens of W m−2, shortwave cooling typically dominates the net radiative effect over the Sea, being particularly pronounced in the summer, reaching 120 W m−2 at the surface. The spatial gradient in summertime AOD is reflected in the radiative effect at the surface and in associated differential heating by aerosol within the atmosphere above the Sea. This asymmetric effect is expected to exert a significant influence on the regional atmospheric and oceanic circulation.

OW Levitus Climatology

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The dataset consists of global temperature and salinity climatologies with a spatial resolution of 1x1 degree, and consists of 19 levels (surface - 5000m). It was...

Climatology and Meteorological Evolution of Major Wildfire Events over the Northeast United States

Science.gov (United States)

Joseph B. Pollina; Brian A. Colle; Joseph J. Charney

2013-01-01

This study presents a spatial and temporal climatology of major wildfire events, defined as >100 acres burned (>40.47 ha, where 1 ha = 2.47 acre), in the northeast United States from 1999 to 2009 and the meteorological conditions associated with these events. The northeast United States is divided into two regions: region 1 is centered over the higher terrain of...

Uncertainty of runoff projections under changing climate in Wami River sub-basin

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frank Joseph Wambura

2015-09-01

New Hydrological Insights for the Region: The results of projected streamflow shows that the baseline annual climatology flow (ACF is 98 m3/s and for the future, the median ACF is projected to be 81 m3/s. At 100% uncertainty of skilled projections, the ACF from the sub-basin is projected to range between −47% and +36% from the baseline ACF. However, the midstream of the sub-basin shows reliable water availability for foreseen water uses expansion up to the year 2039.

Observational and Dynamical Wave Climatologies. VOS vs Satellite Data

Science.gov (United States)

Grigorieva, Victoria; Badulin, Sergei; Chernyshova, Anna

2013-04-01

The understanding physics of wind-driven waves is crucially important for fundamental science and practical applications. This is why experimental efforts are targeted at both getting reliable information on sea state and elaborating effective tools of the sea wave forecasting. The global Visual Wave Observations and satellite data from the GLOBWAVE project of the European Space Agency are analyzed in the context of these two viewpoints. Within the first "observational" aspect we re-analyze conventional climatologies of all basic wave parameters for the last decades [5]. An alternative "dynamical" climatology is introduced as a tool of prediction of dynamical features of sea waves on global scales. The features of wave dynamics are studied in terms of one-parametric dependencies of wave heights on wave periods following the theoretical concept of self-similar wind-driven seas [3, 1, 4] and recently proposed approach to analysis of Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) data [2]. Traditional "observational" climatologies based on VOS and satellite data collections demonstrate extremely consistent pictures for significant wave heights and dominant periods. On the other hand, collocated satellite and VOS data show significant differences in wave heights, wind speeds and, especially, in wave periods. Uncertainties of visual wave observations can explain these differences only partially. We see the key reason of this inconsistency in the methods of satellite data processing which are based on formal application of data interpolation methods rather than on up-to-date physics of wind-driven waves. The problem is considered within the alternative climatology approach where dynamical criteria of wave height-to-period linkage are used for retrieving wave periods and constructing physically consistent dynamical climatology. The key dynamical parameter - exponent R of one-parametric dependence Hs ~ TR shows dramatically less pronounced latitudinal dependence as compared to observed Hs

Synoptic-climatological evaluation of the classifications of atmospheric circulation patterns over Europe

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Huth, Radan; Beck, Ch.; Kučerová, Monika

2016-01-01

Roč. 36, č. 7 (2016), s. 2710-2726 ISSN 0899-8418 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GPP209/12/P811; GA MŠk OC 115 Institutional support: RVO:68378289 Keywords : circulation types * classification * synoptic climatology * COST733 Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology Impact factor: 3.760, year: 2016 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.4546/full

The Adaptive Ecosystem Climatology (AEC): Design and Development

Science.gov (United States)

deRada, S.; Penta, B.; McCarthy, S.; Gould, R. W., Jr.

2016-02-01

The concept of ecosystem-based management (EBM), recently introduced to rectify the shortcomings of single-species management policies, has been widely accepted as a basis for the conservation and management of natural resources. In line with NOAA's Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) Program, EBM is an integrated approach that considers the entire ecosystem and the interactions among species rather than focusing on individual components. This integrative approach relies on heterogeneous data, physical as well as biogeochemical data, among many others. Relative to physical data, however, marine biogeochemical records, also critical in IEA and EBM, are still lacking, both in terms of mature models and in terms of observational data availability. TheAdaptive Ecosystem Climatology (AEC) was conceived as a novel approach to address these limitations, mitigating the shortcomings of the individual components and combining their strengths to enhance decision-making activities. AEC is designed on the concept that a high-frequency climatology can be used as a baseline into which available observational data can be ingested to produce a higher accuracy product. In the absence of observations, the climatology acts as a best estimate. AEC was developed using a long-term simulation of a coupled biophysical numerical model configured for the Gulf of Mexico. Using the model results, we constructed a three-dimensional, dynamically balanced, gridded, static climatology for each calendar day. Using this `static' climatology as a background `first guess', observations from a particular date are ingested via optimal interpolation to `nudge' the climatology toward current conditions, thus providing representative fields for that date (adaptive climatology). With this adaptive approach, AEC can support a variety of EBM objectives, from fisheries, to resource management, to coastal resilience.

Climatological and regional characteristics of supercell tornado occurrence based on a long-term reanalysis of tornado parameters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sugimoto, Soichiro; Nohara, Daisuke; Hirakuchi, Hiromaru

2016-01-01

This study investigates tornado climatology in Japan in terms of the regionalization of tornado intensity. A 50-year reanalysis dataset (the horizontal resolution of 5 km and hourly interval), produced by downscaling using the WRF mesoscale model and ECMWF reanalysis datasets, is used to estimate tornado parameters such as convective available potential energy (CAPE) and 3-km storm relative helicity (SReH). Energy helicity index (EHI) is also calculated as a composite parameter. Based on a long-term reanalysis data of tornado parameters, the number of times simultaneously exceeding threshold values is counted for SReH and CAPE parameters. The same procedure is done for EHI parameter. The thresholds are set from meteorological analysis of F3 tornadoes that are currently the most intense in Japan. Results indicate that the Pacific side of Japan along the south coast is the most favorable region for the occurrence of the most intense scale of tornado. This is consistent with the fact that the paths of most of all F3 tornadoes are include in this high-frequency region in exceeding thresholds. In other hand, approximately one-order smaller frequency in exceeding than the Pacific sides is evaluated in the Japan Sea side, which suggests topographic effects of blocking humid unstable air mass transported from the Pacific Ocean. The tornado intensity region evaluated by our approach is useful for a probabilistic hazard analysis of tornado wind speeds in the implementation of impact assessment of tornadoes for nuclear power plants. (author)

Convective climatology over the southwest U.S. and Mexico from passive microwave and infrared data

Science.gov (United States)

Negri, Andrew J.; Howard, Kenneth W.; Keehn, Peter R.; Maddox, Robert A.; Adler, Robert F.

1992-01-01

Passive microwave data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) were used to estimate the amount of rainfall in the June-August season for the regions of the southwest U.S. and Mexico, and the results are compared to rain-gauge observations and to IR climatologies of Maddox et al. (1992), using both the hourly IR data and IR data sampled at the time of the overpass of the SSM/I. A comparison of the microwave climatology with monthly rainfall measured by the climatological gage network over several states of western Mexico resulted in a 0.63 correlation and a large (482 mm) bias, due to sampling and the incongruity of rain gages and satellite estimates. A comparison between the IR and microwave data showed that the IR tended toward higher percentages along the coast compared to the microwave.

A Wildfire-relevant climatology of the convective environment of the United States

Science.gov (United States)

Brian E. Potter; Matthew A. Anaya

2015-01-01

Convective instability can influence the behaviour of large wildfires. Because wildfires modify the temperature and moisture of air in their plumes, instability calculations using ambient conditions may not accurately represent convective potential for some fire plumes. This study used the North American Regional Reanalysis to develop a climatology of the convective...

Climatological Data National Summary

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The CDNS was published from 1950 - 1980. Monthly and annual editions contain summarized climatological information from the following publications: Local...

Constructing an AIRS Climatology for Data Visualization and Analysis to Serve the Climate Science and Application Communities

Science.gov (United States)

Ding, Feng; Keim, Elaine; Hearty, Thomas J.; Wei, Jennifer; Savtchenko, Andrey; Theobald, Michael; Vollmer, Bruce

2016-01-01

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) is the home of processing, archiving, and distribution services for NASA sounders: the present Aqua AIRS mission and the succeeding SNPP CrIS mission. The AIRS mission is entering its 15th year of global observations of the atmospheric state, including temperature and humidity profiles, outgoing longwave radiation, cloud properties, and trace gases. The GES DISC, in collaboration with the AIRS Project, released product from the version 6 algorithm in early 2013. Giovanni, a Web-based application developed by the GES DISC, provides a simple and intuitive way to visualize, analyze, and access vast amounts of Earth science remote sensing data without having to download the data. Most important variables from version 6 AIRS product are available in Giovanni. We are developing a climatology product using 14-year AIRS retrievals. The study can be a good start for the long term climatology from NASA sounders: the AIRS and the succeeding CrIS. This presentation will show the impacts to the climatology product from different aggregation methods. The climatology can serve climate science and application communities in data visualization and analysis, which will be demonstrated using a variety of functions in version 4 Giovanni. The highlights of these functions include user-defined monthly and seasonal climatology, inter annual seasonal time series, anomaly analysis.

The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project H-Series climate data record product

Science.gov (United States)

Young, Alisa H.; Knapp, Kenneth R.; Inamdar, Anand; Hankins, William; Rossow, William B.

2018-03-01

This paper describes the new global long-term International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) H-series climate data record (CDR). The H-series data contain a suite of level 2 and 3 products for monitoring the distribution and variation of cloud and surface properties to better understand the effects of clouds on climate, the radiation budget, and the global hydrologic cycle. This product is currently available for public use and is derived from both geostationary and polar-orbiting satellite imaging radiometers with common visible and infrared (IR) channels. The H-series data currently span July 1983 to December 2009 with plans for continued production to extend the record to the present with regular updates. The H-series data are the longest combined geostationary and polar orbiter satellite-based CDR of cloud properties. Access to the data is provided in network common data form (netCDF) and archived by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) under the satellite Climate Data Record Program (https://doi.org/10.7289/V5QZ281S" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.7289/V5QZ281S). The basic characteristics, history, and evolution of the dataset are presented herein with particular emphasis on and discussion of product changes between the H-series and the widely used predecessor D-series product which also spans from July 1983 through December 2009. Key refinements included in the ISCCP H-series CDR are based on improved quality control measures, modified ancillary inputs, higher spatial resolution input and output products, calibration refinements, and updated documentation and metadata to bring the H-series product into compliance with existing standards for climate data records.

Climatological determinants of woody cover in Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Good, Stephen P; Caylor, Kelly K

2011-03-22

Determining the factors that influence the distribution of woody vegetation cover and resolving the sensitivity of woody vegetation cover to shifts in environmental forcing are critical steps necessary to predict continental-scale responses of dryland ecosystems to climate change. We use a 6-year satellite data record of fractional woody vegetation cover and an 11-year daily precipitation record to investigate the climatological controls on woody vegetation cover across the African continent. We find that-as opposed to a relationship with only mean annual rainfall-the upper limit of fractional woody vegetation cover is strongly influenced by both the quantity and intensity of rainfall events. Using a set of statistics derived from the seasonal distribution of rainfall, we show that areas with similar seasonal rainfall totals have higher fractional woody cover if the local rainfall climatology consists of frequent, less intense precipitation events. Based on these observations, we develop a generalized response surface between rainfall climatology and maximum woody vegetation cover across the African continent. The normalized local gradient of this response surface is used as an estimator of ecosystem vegetation sensitivity to climatological variation. A comparison between predicted climate sensitivity patterns and observed shifts in both rainfall and vegetation during 2009 reveals both the importance of rainfall climatology in governing how ecosystems respond to interannual fluctuations in climate and the utility of our framework as a means to forecast continental-scale patterns of vegetation shifts in response to future climate change.

An Updated TRMM Composite Climatology of Tropical Rainfall and Its Validation

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jian-Jian; Adler, Robert F.; Huffman, George; Bolvin, David

2013-01-01

An updated 15-yr Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) composite climatology (TCC) is presented and evaluated. This climatology is based on a combination of individual rainfall estimates made with data from the primaryTRMMinstruments: theTRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and the precipitation radar (PR). This combination climatology of passive microwave retrievals, radar-based retrievals, and an algorithm using both instruments simultaneously provides a consensus TRMM-based estimate of mean precipitation. The dispersion of the three estimates, as indicated by the standard deviation sigma among the estimates, is presented as a measure of confidence in the final estimate and as an estimate of the uncertainty thereof. The procedures utilized by the compositing technique, including adjustments and quality-control measures, are described. The results give a mean value of the TCC of 4.3mm day(exp -1) for the deep tropical ocean beltbetween 10 deg N and 10 deg S, with lower values outside that band. In general, the TCC values confirm ocean estimates from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) analysis, which is based on passive microwave results adjusted for sampling by infrared-based estimates. The pattern of uncertainty estimates shown by sigma is seen to be useful to indicate variations in confidence. Examples include differences between the eastern and western portions of the Pacific Ocean and high values in coastal and mountainous areas. Comparison of the TCC values (and the input products) to gauge analyses over land indicates the value of the radar-based estimates (small biases) and the limitations of the passive microwave algorithm (relatively large biases). Comparison with surface gauge information from western Pacific Ocean atolls shows a negative bias (16%) for all the TRMM products, although the representativeness of the atoll gauges of open-ocean rainfall is still in question.

Preliminary Monthly Climatological Summaries

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Preliminary Local Climatological Data, recorded since 1970 on Weather Burean Form 1030 and then National Weather Service Form F-6. The preliminary climate data pages...

Synthesis of results obtained within the framework of international satellite land surface climatology projects. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bolle, H.J.; Katergiannakis, U.; Billing, H.; Koslowsky, D.; Langer, I.; Tonn, W.

1993-01-01

In large-scale field experiments, methods were validated with whose aid characteristics of the terrestrial surfaces can be derived from satellite data; these characteristics are required for the exploration of the global change. The report gives an overview. The following topics are treated: Problems of calibration of satellite sensors; the geographical matching of ground observations to the satellite measurements; necessary corrections; dimensional integration of the data up to the dimensions of raster grids of global climate models. The report discusses in detail in what manner the remote exploration data can be connected with information on the terrestrial surfaces, in particular with energy balances. Few experiments only have been executed up to now within the framework of land surface climatology; however, they contributed a great deal to the better understanding of linking satellite data with terrestrial surface processes. If one wants to apply the elaborated methods globally wants, one needs, however, complex algorithms as well as - at least for the time being - constant quality control in the different landscape regions of the earth. (orig.) [de

[Characteristics of water and heat fluxes and its footprint climatology on farmland in low hilly region of red soil].

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yang; Jing, Yuan Shu; Qin, Ben Ben

2017-01-01

The analysis of the characteristics and footprint climatology of farmland water and heat fluxes has great significance to strengthen regional climate resource management and improve the hydrothermal resource utilization in the region of red soil. Based on quality controlled data from large aperture scintillometer and automatic meteorological station in hilly region of red soil, this paper analyzed in detail the characteristics of farmland water and heat fluxes at different temporal scales and the corresponding source area distribution of flux measurement in the non-rainy season and crop growth period in hilly region of red soil. The results showed that the diurnal variation of water and heat fluxes showed a unimodal trend, but compared with the sunny day, the diurnal variation curves fluctuated more complicatedly on cloudy day. In the whole, either ten-day periods or month scale, the water and heat fluxes were greater in August than in September, while the net radiation flux was more distributed to latent heat exchange. The proportion of net radiation to latent heat flux decreased in September compared to August, but the sensible heat flux was vice versa. With combined effects of weather conditions (particularly wind), stability, and surface condition, the source areas of flux measurement at different temporal scales showed different distribution characteristics. Combined with the underlying surface crops, the source areas at different temporal scales also had different contribution sources.

Situational Lightning Climatologies

Science.gov (United States)

Bauman, William; Crawford, Winifred

2010-01-01

Research has revealed distinct spatial and temporal distributions of lightning occurrence that are strongly influenced by large-scale atmospheric flow regimes. It was believed there were two flow systems, but it has been discovered that actually there are seven distinct flow regimes. The Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) has recalculated the lightning climatologies for the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), and the eight airfields in the National Weather Service in Melbourne (NWS MLB) County Warning Area (CWA) using individual lightning strike data to improve the accuracy of the climatologies. The software determines the location of each CG lightning strike with 5-, 10-, 20-, and 30-nmi (.9.3-, 18.5-, 37-, 55.6-km) radii from each airfield. Each CG lightning strike is binned at 1-, 3-, and 6-hour intervals at each specified radius. The software merges the CG lightning strike time intervals and distance with each wind flow regime and creates probability statistics for each time interval, radii, and flow regime, and stratifies them by month and warm season. The AMU also updated the graphical user interface (GUI) with the new data.

Water mass census in the Nordic seas using climatological and observational data sets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Piacsek, S.; Allard, R.; McClean, J.

2008-01-01

We have compared and evaluated the water mass census in the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (Gin) Sea area from climatologies, observational data sets and model output. The four climatologies evaluated were: the 1998 and 2001 versions of the World Ocean Atlas (WOA98, WOA01), and the United States Navy's GDEM90 (Generalized Digital Environmental Model) and MODAS01 (Modular Ocean Data Assimilation System) climatologies. Three observational data sets were examined: the multidecadal (1965-1995) set contained on the National Oceano- graphic Data Centre's (NODC) WOD98 (World Ocean Data) Cd-Rom, and two seasonal data sets extracted from observations taken on six cruises by the SACLANT Research Center (SACLANTCEN) of NATO/Italy between 1986-1989. The model data is extracted from a global model run at 1/3 degree resolution for the years 1983-1997, using the Pop (Parallel Ocean Program) model of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The census computations focused on the Norwegian Sea, in the southern part of the Gin Sea, between 10 0 W-10 0 E and 60 0 N-70 0 N, especially for comparisons with the hydro casts and the model. Cases of such evaluation computations included: (a) short term comparisons with quasi-synoptic CTD surveys carried out over a 4-year period in the southeastern Gin Sea; (b) climatological comparisons utilizing all available casts from the WOD98 Cd-Rom, with four climatologies; and (c) a comparison between the WOA01 climatology and the Pop model output ending in 1997. In this region in the spring, the fraction of ocean water that has salinity above 34.85 is ∼94%, and that has temperatures above 0 0 C is ∼33%. Three principal water masses dominated the census: the Atlantic water A W, the deep water D W and an intermediate water mass defined as Lower Arctic Intermediate Water (LAIW). Besides these classes, both the climatologies and the observations exhibited the significant presence of deep water masses with T-S characteristics that do not fall into the named

Hanford Site Climatological Data Summary 1999 with Historical Data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoitink, Dana J; Burk, Kenneth W; Ramsdell, Jim V

2000-01-01

This document presents the climatological data measured at the Hanford Site for calendar year 1999. The information contained includes updated historical climatologies for temperature, precipitation, normal and extreme values of temperature and precipitation and other meteorological parameters

The anomalous high temperatures of November 2010 over Greece: meteorological and climatological aspects

Science.gov (United States)

Tolika, K.; Pytharoulis, I.; Maheras, P.

2011-10-01

This paper presents an analysis of the exceptionally high maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperatures which occurred during November 2010 and affected the entire Greek region. This severe "warm cold-season spell" was unusual because of its prolonged duration and intensity for the entire month and particularly the maximum temperature anomalies, which in comparison with the 1958-2000 climatological average, exceeded 5 °C at several stations. Comparing the observed record with future projections from three regional climate models revealed that Tmax and Tmin, on several days in November 2010, exceeded the 90th percentile of the simulated data. An examination of the atmospheric - synoptic conditions during this period showed that the anomalous high temperatures could probably be related to the negative phase of the Eastern Mediterranean Pattern (EMP), with an intense pole of negative anomalies located over the British Isles, and to the east, a second pole of positive anomalies, centred over the Caspian Sea. Finally, an attempt is made to further investigate the mechanisms responsible for this phenomenon, for example, the thermal forcing in the tropics (Niño 3 or Niño 3.4).

Development and Testing of the New Surface LER Climatology for OMI UV Aerosol Retrievals

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Pawan; Torres, Omar; Jethva, Hiren; Ahn, Changwoo

2014-01-01

Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) onboard Aura satellite retrieved aerosols properties using UV part of solar spectrum. The OMI near UV aerosol algorithm (OMAERUV) is a global inversion scheme which retrieves aerosol properties both over ocean and land. The current version of the algorithm makes use of TOMS derived Lambertian Equivalent Reflectance (LER) climatology. A new monthly climatology of surface LER at 354 and 388 nm have been developed. This will replace TOMS LER (380 nm and 354nm) climatology in OMI near UV aerosol retrieval algorithm. The main objectives of this study is to produce high resolution (quarter degree) surface LER sets as compared to existing one degree TOMS surface LERs, to product instrument and wavelength consistent surface climatology. Nine years of OMI observations have been used to derive monthly climatology of surface LER. MODIS derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) have been used to make aerosol corrections on OMI wavelengths. MODIS derived BRDF adjusted reflectance product has been also used to capture seasonal changes in the surface characteristics. Finally spatial and temporal averaging techniques have been used to fill the gaps around the globes, especially in the regions with consistent cloud cover such as Amazon. After implementation of new surface data in the research version of algorithm, comparisons of AOD and single scattering albedo (SSA) have been performed over global AERONET sites for year 2007. Preliminary results shows improvements in AOD retrievals globally but more significance improvement were observed over desert and bright locations. We will present methodology of deriving surface data sets and will discuss the observed changes in retrieved aerosol properties with respect to reference AERONET measurements.

An A-Train Climatology of Extratropical Cyclone Clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Posselt, Derek J.; van den Heever, Susan C.; Booth, James F.; Del Genio, Anthony D.; Kahn, Brian; Bauer, Mike

2016-01-01

Extratropical cyclones (ETCs) are the main purveyors of precipitation in the mid-latitudes, especially in winter, and have a significant radiative impact through the clouds they generate. However, general circulation models (GCMs) have trouble representing precipitation and clouds in ETCs, and this might partly explain why current GCMs disagree on to the evolution of these systems in a warming climate. Collectively, the A-train observations of MODIS, CloudSat, CALIPSO, AIRS and AMSR-E have given us a unique perspective on ETCs: over the past 10 years these observations have allowed us to construct a climatology of clouds and precipitation associated with these storms. This has proved very useful for model evaluation as well in studies aimed at improving understanding of moist processes in these dynamically active conditions. Using the A-train observational suite and an objective cyclone and front identification algorithm we have constructed cyclone centric datasets that consist of an observation-based characterization of clouds and precipitation in ETCs and their sensitivity to large scale environments. In this presentation, we will summarize the advances in our knowledge of the climatological properties of cloud and precipitation in ETCs acquired with this unique dataset. In particular, we will present what we have learned about southern ocean ETCs, for which the A-train observations have filled a gap in this data sparse region. In addition, CloudSat and CALIPSO have for the first time provided information on the vertical distribution of clouds in ETCs and across warm and cold fronts. We will also discuss how these observations have helped identify key areas for improvement in moist processes in recent GCMs. Recently, we have begun to explore the interaction between aerosol and cloud cover in ETCs using MODIS, CloudSat and CALIPSO. We will show how aerosols are climatologically distributed within northern hemisphere ETCs, and how this relates to cloud cover.

Sound speed in the Mediterranean Sea: an analysis from a climatological data set

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Salon

2003-03-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an analysis of sound speed distribution in the Mediterranean Sea based on climatological temperature and salinity data. In the upper layers, propagation is characterised by upward refraction in winter and an acoustic channel in summer. The seasonal cycle of the Mediterranean and the presence of gyres and fronts create a wide range of spatial and temporal variabilities, with relevant differences between the western and eastern basins. It is shown that the analysis of a climatological data set can help in defining regions suitable for successful monitoring by means of acoustic tomography. Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF decomposition on the profiles, performed on the seasonal cycle for some selected areas, demonstrates that two modes account for more than 98% of the variability of the climatological distribution. Reduced order EOF analysis is able to correctly represent sound speed profiles within each zone, thus providing the a priori knowledge for Matched Field Tomography. It is also demonstrated that salinity can affect the tomographic inversion, creating a higher degree of complexity than in the open oceans.Key words. Oceanography: general (marginal and semi-enclosed seas; ocean acoustics

Observations of the atmospheric boundary layer height over Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: Investigating boundary layer climatology in arid regions

Science.gov (United States)

Marzooqi, Mohamed Al; Basha, Ghouse; Ouarda, Taha B. M. J.; Armstrong, Peter; Molini, Annalisa

2014-05-01

Strong sensible heat fluxes and deep turbulent mixing - together with marked dustiness and a low substrate water content - represent a characteristic signature in the boundary layer over hot deserts, resulting in "thicker" mixing layers and peculiar optical properties. Beside these main features however, desert ABLs present extremely complex local structures that have been scarcely addressed in the literature, and whose understanding is essential in modeling processes such as the transport of dust and pollutants, and turbulent fluxes of momentum, heat and water vapor in hyper-arid regions. In this study, we analyze a continuous record of observations of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) height from a single lens LiDAR ceilometer operated at Masdar Institute Field Station (24.4oN, 54.6o E, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), starting March 2013. We compare different methods for the estimation of the ABL height from Ceilometer data such as, classic variance-, gradient-, log gradient- and second derivation-methods as well as recently developed techniques such as the Bayesian Method and Wavelet covariance transform. Our goal is to select the most suited technique for describing the climatology of the ABL in desert environments. Comparison of our results with radiosonde observations collected at the nearby airport of Abu Dhabi indicate that the WCT and the Bayesian method are the most suitable tools to accurately identify the ABL height in all weather conditions. These two methods are used for the definition of diurnal and seasonal climatologies of the boundary layer conditional to different atmospheric stability classes.

A daytime climatological distribution of high opaque ice cloud classes over the Indian summer monsoon region observed from 25-year AVHRR data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Devasthale

2009-06-01

Full Text Available A daytime climatological spatio-temporal distribution of high opaque ice cloud (HOIC classes over the Indian subcontinent (0–40° N, 60° E–100° E is presented using 25-year data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRRs for the summer monsoon months. The HOICs are important for regional radiative balance, precipitation and troposphere-stratosphere exchange. In this study, HOICs are sub-divided into three classes based on their cloud top brightness temperatures (BT. Class I represents very deep convection (BT<220 K. Class II represents deep convection (220 K<=BT<233 K and Class III background convection (233 K<=BT<253 K. Apart from presenting finest spatial resolution (0.1×0.1 degrees and long-term climatology of such cloud classes from AVHRRs to date, this study for the first time illustrates on (1 how these three cloud classes are climatologically distributed during monsoon months, and (2 how their distribution changes during active and break monsoon conditions. It is also investigated that how many deep convective clouds reach the tropopause layer during individual monsoon months. It is seen that Class I and Class II clouds dominate the Indian subcontinent during monsoon. The movement of monsoon over continent is very well reflected in these cloud classes. During monsoon breaks strong suppression of convective activity is observed over the Arabian Sea and the western coast of India. On the other hand, the presence of such convective activity is crucial for active monsoon conditions and all-India rainfall. It is found that a significant fraction of HOICs (3–5% reach the tropopause layer over the Bay of Bengal during June and over the north and northeast India during July and August. Many cases are observed when clouds penetrate the tropopause layer and reach the lower stratosphere. Such cases mostly occur during June compared to the other months.

Managing regional innovation strategy projects

OpenAIRE

Wolf, Patricia; Hanisch, Christoph

2014-01-01

This paper presents a qualitative interview study with 28 RIS project managers that aimed at understanding whether or not this is true in the context of regional innovation and what the specifics of managing regional innovation projects are. In taking up a recent claim for policy intervention studies which allow to “derive precise suggestions for their design and management”.  The study investigated the interrelation between the agility of the management approach and the achievements of RIS p...

Local Climatological Data (LCD) Publication

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Local Climatological Data (LCD) contains summaries from major airport weather stations that include a daily account of temperature extremes, degree days,...

An updated analysis of the Lucas Heights Climatology - 1975 to 1996

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Clark, G.H

1997-06-01

Meteorological data collected from 1975 to 1996 in the Lucas Heights region have been summarised to provide an update on the climatology. Initially data were recorded in analogue form but since 1991 advanced digital recording systems have allowed more accurate and extensive statistics to be analysed. Since 1993 a network of meteorological stations has been installed through the surrounding area to investigate the influence of complex terrain on wind flow and atmospheric dispersion patterns. A large data volumes is presented together with some initial interpretation of these complex terrain influences on the Lucas Heights region climatolology. 33 refs., 25 tabs., 45 figs.

Functional inverted Wishart for Bayesian multivariate spatial modeling with application to regional climatology model data.

Science.gov (United States)

Duan, L L; Szczesniak, R D; Wang, X

2017-11-01

Modern environmental and climatological studies produce multiple outcomes at high spatial resolutions. Multivariate spatial modeling is an established means to quantify cross-correlation among outcomes. However, existing models typically suffer from poor computational efficiency and lack the flexibility to simultaneously estimate auto- and cross-covariance structures. In this article, we undertake a novel construction of covariance by utilizing spectral convolution and by imposing an inverted Wishart prior on the cross-correlation structure. The cross-correlation structure with this functional inverted Wishart prior flexibly accommodates not only positive but also weak or negative associations among outcomes while preserving spatial resolution. Furthermore, the proposed model is computationally efficient and produces easily interpretable results, including the individual autocovariances and full cross-correlation matrices, as well as a partial cross-correlation matrix reflecting the outcome correlation after excluding the effects caused by spatial convolution. The model is examined using simulated data sets under different scenarios. It is also applied to the data from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program, examining long-term associations between surface outcomes for air temperature, pressure, humidity, and radiation, on the land area of the North American West Coast. Results and predictive performance are compared with findings from approaches using convolution only or coregionalization.

Functional inverted Wishart for Bayesian multivariate spatial modeling with application to regional climatology model data

Science.gov (United States)

Duan, L. L.; Szczesniak, R. D.; Wang, X.

2018-01-01

Modern environmental and climatological studies produce multiple outcomes at high spatial resolutions. Multivariate spatial modeling is an established means to quantify cross-correlation among outcomes. However, existing models typically suffer from poor computational efficiency and lack the flexibility to simultaneously estimate auto- and cross-covariance structures. In this article, we undertake a novel construction of covariance by utilizing spectral convolution and by imposing an inverted Wishart prior on the cross-correlation structure. The cross-correlation structure with this functional inverted Wishart prior flexibly accommodates not only positive but also weak or negative associations among outcomes while preserving spatial resolution. Furthermore, the proposed model is computationally efficient and produces easily interpretable results, including the individual autocovariances and full cross-correlation matrices, as well as a partial cross-correlation matrix reflecting the outcome correlation after excluding the effects caused by spatial convolution. The model is examined using simulated data sets under different scenarios. It is also applied to the data from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program, examining long-term associations between surface outcomes for air temperature, pressure, humidity, and radiation, on the land area of the North American West Coast. Results and predictive performance are compared with findings from approaches using convolution only or coregionalization. PMID:29576735

A Precipitation Climatology of the Snowy Mountains, Australia

Science.gov (United States)

Theobald, Alison; McGowan, Hamish; Speirs, Johanna

2014-05-01

The precipitation that falls in the Snowy Mountains region of southeastern Australia provides critical water resources for hydroelectric power generation. Water storages in this region are also a major source of agricultural irrigation, environmental flows, and offer a degree of flood protection for some of the major river systems in Australia. Despite this importance, there remains a knowledge gap regarding the long-term, historic variability of the synoptic weather systems that deliver precipitation to the region. This research aims to increase the understanding of long-term variations in precipitation-bearing weather systems resulting in runoff into the Snowy Mountains catchments and reservoirs, and the way in which these are influenced by large-scale climate drivers. Here we present initial results on the development of a climatology of precipitation-bearing synoptic weather systems (synoptic typology), spanning a period of over 100 years. The synoptic typology is developed from the numerical weather model re-analysis data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), in conjunction with regional precipitation and temperature data from a network of private gauges. Given the importance of surface, mid- and upper-air patterns on seasonal precipitation, the synoptic typing will be based on a range of meteorological variables throughout the depth of the troposphere, highlighting the importance of different atmospheric levels on the development and steering of synoptic precipitation bearing systems. The temporal and spatial variability of these synoptic systems, their response to teleconnection forcings and their contribution to inflow generation in the headwater catchments of the Snowy Mountains will be investigated. The resulting climatology will provide new understanding of the drivers of regional-scale precipitation variability at inter- and intra-annual timescales. It will enable greater understanding of how variability in synoptic scale

Regional demand and supply projections for outdoor recreation

Science.gov (United States)

Donald B. K. English; Carter J. Betz; J. Mark Young; John C. Bergstrom; H. Ken Cordell

1993-01-01

This paper develops regional recreation supply and demand projections, by combining coefficients from the national 1989 RPA Assessment models with regional regressor values. Regional recreation opportunity estimates also are developed, based on regional travel behavior. Results show important regional variations in projections of recreation opportunities, trip supply,...

Analysis of the synoptic winter mortality climatology in five regions of England: Searching for evidence of weather signals.

Science.gov (United States)

Paschalidou, A K; Kassomenos, P A; McGregor, G R

2017-11-15

Although heat-related mortality has received considerable research attention, the impact of cold weather on public health is less well-developed, probably due to the fact that physiological responses to cold weather can vary substantially among individuals, age groups, diseases etc., depending on a number of behavioral and physiological factors. In the current work we use the classification techniques provided by the COST-733 software to link synoptic circulation patterns with excess cold-related mortality in 5 regions of England. We conclude that, regardless of the classification scheme used, the most hazardous conditions for public health in England are associated with the prevalence of the Easterly type of weather, favoring advection of cold air from continental Europe. It is noteworthy that there has been observed little-to-no regional variation with regards to the classification results among the 5 regions, suggestive of a spatially homogenous response of mortality to the atmospheric patterns identified. In general, the 10 different groupings of days used reveal that excess winter mortality is linked with the lowest daily minimum/maximum temperatures in the area. However it is not uncommon to observe high mortality rates during days with higher, in relative terms, temperatures, when rapidly changing weather results in an increase of mortality. Such a finding confirms the complexity of cold-related mortality and highlights the importance of synoptic climatology in understanding of the phenomenon. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

U.S. Annual Climatological Summaries

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Annual Climatological Summary contains historical monthly and annual summaries for over 8000 U.S. locations. Observing stations are located in the United States of...

Teaching Climatology and Meterology

OpenAIRE

Waddington, Shelagh B.

1997-01-01

Climatology and meteorology are often regarded as very difficult to teach by teachers and very hard to learn by students. This paper presents simple practical exercises which will enable teachers to make the topic of greater interest and easier for students to understand some of the basic ideas.

Global Synoptic Climatology Network (GSCN)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Dataset DSI-9290 is the result of a joint effort to create a Global Synoptic Climatology Network among the Meteorological Service of Canada (Downsview, Ontario and...

Variations and Trends in Global and Regional Precipitation Based on the 22-year GPCP (Global Precipitation Climatology Project) and Three-year TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) Data Sets

Science.gov (United States)

Adler, R.; Curtis, S.; Huffman, G.; Bolvin, D.; Nelkin, E.

2001-05-01

This paper gives an overview of the analysis of global precipitation over the last few decades and the impact of the new TRMM precipitation observations. The 20+ year, monthly, globally complete precipitation analysis of the World Climate Research Program's (WCRP/GEWEX) Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) is used to study global and regional variations and trends and is compared to the much shorter TRMM(Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) tropical data set. The GPCP data set shows no significant trend in global precipitation over the twenty years, unlike the positive trend in global surface temperatures over the past century. The global trend analysis must be interpreted carefully, however, because the inhomogeneity of the data set makes detecting a small signal very difficult, especially over this relatively short period. The relation of global (and tropical) total precipitation and ENSO events is quantified with no significant signal when land and ocean are combined. Identifying regional trends in precipitation may be more practical. From 1979 to 2000 the tropics have pattern of regional rainfall trends that has an ENSO-like pattern with features of both the El Nino and La Nina. This feature is related to a possible trend in the frequency of ENSO events (either El Nino or La Nina) over the past 20 years. Monthly anomalies of precipitation are related to ENSO variations with clear signals extending into middle and high latitudes of both hemispheres. The El Nino and La Nina mean anomalies are near mirror images of each other and when combined produce an ENSO signal with significant spatial continuity over large distances. A number of the features are shown to extend into high latitudes. Positive anomalies extend in the Southern Hemisphere (S.H.) from the Pacific southeastward across Chile and Argentina into the south Atlantic Ocean. In the Northern Hemisphere (N.H.) the counterpart feature extends across the southern U.S. and Atlantic Ocean into Europe

Climatological properties of summertime extra-tropical storm tracks in the Northern Hemisphere

OpenAIRE

Dos Santos Mesquita, Michel; Kvamstø, Nils Gunnar; Sorteberg, Asgeir; Atkinson, David E.

2008-01-01

This paper presents climatological properties of Northern Hemisphere summer extratropical storm tracks using data extracted from an existing, relative-vorticity-based storm database. This database was constructed using the NCEPNCAR ‘Reanalysis I’ data set from 1948 to 2002. Results contrasting summer and winter patterns for several storm parameters indicated general similarity at the largest scales, including the prominent track corridors of the middle latitude ocean regions and the mid-conti...

Lightning climatology in the Congo Basin: detailed analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Soula, Serge; Kigotsi, Jean; Georgis, Jean-François; Barthe, Christelle

2016-04-01

The lightning climatology of the Congo Basin including several countries of Central Africa is analyzed in detail for the first time. It is based on World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) data for the period from 2005 to 2013. A comparison of these data with the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) data for the same period shows the WWLLN detection efficiency (DE) in the region increases from about 1.70 % in the beginning of the period to 5.90 % in 2013, relative to LIS data, but not uniformly over the whole 2750 km × 2750 km area. Both the annual flash density and the number of stormy days show sharp maximum values localized in eastern of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and west of Kivu Lake, regardless of the reference year and the period of the year. These maxima reach 12.86 fl km-2 and 189 days, respectively, in 2013, and correspond with a very active region located at the rear of the Virunga mountain range characterised with summits that can reach 3000 m. The presence of this range plays a role in the thunderstorm development along the year. The estimation of this local maximum of the lightning density by taking into account the DE, leads to a value consistent with that of the global climatology by Christian et al. (2003) and other authors. Thus, a mean maximum value of about 157 fl km-2 y-1 is found for the annual lightning density. The zonal distribution of the lightning flashes exhibits a maximum between 1°S and 2°S and about 56 % of the flashes located below the equator in the 10°S - 10°N interval. The diurnal evolution of the flash rate has a maximum between 1400 and 1700 UTC, according to the reference year, in agreement with previous works in other regions of the world.

Climatological study of Saclay site from 1958 to 1966. General climatology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Levrard, Andre

1969-03-01

This document complements the CEA-N--0463 note with additional climatological measurements performed between 1963 and 1966 at the CEA Saclay centre, extending this survey over the 1958 to 1966 period. The duration, height, number of days and intensity of precipitations, the temperatures and vertical thermal gradient, the fog/mist and the wind direction and speed are reported monthly, seasonally and annually and presented in tables and diagrams

Climatology and forest decay - stresses caused by dry periods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Havlik, D.

1991-01-01

In the discussion of forest decline in the Eighties, stresses due to dry weather is often named as a secondary cause. The concept of 'climatological dry periods' is introduced in this article and applied to records for the Basel and Aachen regions. The time distribution of dry periods of different length and different water deficiency (40 mm, 60 mm, 100 mm) is analyzed. In the case of the Basel data, the dry periods are related to the 'forest damage caused by draught' recorded for the Basel region since 1930. The results support the theory that increasingly larger and more frequent dry periods with water shortage have contributed significantly to forest damage in the last 15 years. Apart from the 'dry stress' itself, also the enhanced production of photooxidants is a damaging mechanism. (orig.) [de

The anomalous high temperatures of November 2010 over Greece: meteorological and climatological aspects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Tolika

2011-10-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an analysis of the exceptionally high maximum (T_max and minimum (T_min temperatures which occurred during November 2010 and affected the entire Greek region. This severe "warm cold-season spell" was unusual because of its prolonged duration and intensity for the entire month and particularly the maximum temperature anomalies, which in comparison with the 1958–2000 climatological average, exceeded 5 °C at several stations. Comparing the observed record with future projections from three regional climate models revealed that T_max and T_min, on several days in November 2010, exceeded the 90th percentile of the simulated data. An examination of the atmospheric – synoptic conditions during this period showed that the anomalous high temperatures could probably be related to the negative phase of the Eastern Mediterranean Pattern (EMP, with an intense pole of negative anomalies located over the British Isles, and to the east, a second pole of positive anomalies, centred over the Caspian Sea. Finally, an attempt is made to further investigate the mechanisms responsible for this phenomenon, for example, the thermal forcing in the tropics (Niño 3 or Niño 3.4.

A multi-decadal assessment of the performance of gauge- and model-based rainfall products over Saudi Arabia: Climatology, anomalies and trends

KAUST Repository

El Kenawy, Ahmed M.

2015-05-15

Many arid and semi-arid regions have sparse precipitation observing networks, which limits the capacity for detailed hydrological modelling, water resources management and flood forecasting efforts. The objective of this work is to evaluate the utility of relatively high-spatial resolution rainfall products to reproduce observed multi-decadal rainfall characteristics such as climatologies, anomalies and trends over Saudi Arabia. Our study compares the statistical characteristics of rainfall from 53 observatories over the reference period 1965-2005, with rainfall data from six widely used gauge-based products, including APHRODITE, GPCC, PRINCETON, UDEL, CRU and PREC/L. In addition, the performance of three global climate models (GCMs), including CCSM4, EC-EARTH and MRI-I-CGCM3, integrated as part of the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), was also evaluated. Results indicate that the gauge-based products were generally skillful in reproducing rainfall characteristics in Saudi Arabia. In most cases, the gauge-based products were also able to capture the annual cycle, anomalies and climatologies of observed data, although significant inter-product variability was observed, depending on the assessment metric being used. In comparison, the GCM-based products generally exhibited poor performance, with larger biases and very weak correlations, particularly during the summertime. Importantly, all products generally failed to reproduce the observed long-term seasonal and annual trends in the region, particularly during the dry seasons (summer and autumn). Overall, this work suggests that selected gauge-based products with daily (APHRODITE and PRINCETON) and monthly (GPCC and CRU) resolutions show superior performance relative to other products, implying that they may be the most appropriate data source from which multi-decadal variations of rainfall can be investigated at the regional scale over Saudi Arabia. Discriminating these skillful products is

A Study of Precipitation Climatology and Its Variability over Europe Using an Advanced Regional Model (WRF)

KAUST Repository

Dasari, Hari Prasad

2015-03-06

In recent years long-term precipitation trends on a regional scale have been given emphasis due to the impacts of global warming on regional hydrology. In this study, regional precipitation trends are simulated over the Europe continent for a 60-year period in 1950-2010 using an advanced regional model, WRF, to study extreme precipitation events over Europe. The model runs continuously for each year during the period at a horizontal resolution of 25 km with initial/ boundary conditions derived from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) 2.5 degree reanalysis data sets. The E-OBS 0.25 degree rainfall observation analysis is used for model validation. Results indicate that the model could reproduce the spatial annual rainfall pattern over Europe with low amounts (250 - 750 mm) in Iberian Peninsula, moderate to large amounts (750 - 1500 mm) in central, eastern and northeastern parts of Europe and extremely heavy falls (1500 - 2000 mm) in hilly areas of Alps with a slight overestimation in Alps and underestimation in other parts of Europe. The regional model integrations showed increasing errors (mean absolute errors) and decreasing correlations with increasing time scale (daily to seasonal). Rainfall is simulated relatively better in Iberian Peninsula, northwest and central parts of Europe. A large spatial variability with the highest number of wet days over eastern, central Europe and Alps (~200 days/year) and less number of wet days over Iberian Peninsula (≤150 days/year) is also found in agreement with observations. The model could simulate the spatial rainfall climate variability reasonably well with low rainfall days (1 - 10 mm/days) in almost all zones, heavy rainfall events in western, northern, southeastern hilly and coastal zones and extremely heavy rainfall events in northern coastal zones. An increasing trend of heavy rainfall in central, southern and southeastern parts, a decreasing trend in Iberian Peninsula and a steady trend in other

MERIS albedo climatology for FRESCO+ O2 A-band cloud retrieval

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Y. Zhou

2011-03-01

Full Text Available A new global albedo climatology for Oxygen A-band cloud retrievals is presented. The climatology is based on MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS Albedomap data and its favourable impact on the derivation of cloud fraction is demonstrated for the FRESCO+ (Fast Retrieval Scheme for Clouds from the Oxygen A-band algorithm. To date, a relatively coarse resolution (1° × 1° surface reflectance dataset from GOME (Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment Lambert-equivalent reflectivity (LER is used in FRESCO+. The GOME LER climatology does not account for the usually higher spatial resolution of UV/VIS instruments designed for trace gas remote sensing which introduces several artefacts, e.g. in regions with sharp spectral contrasts like coastlines or over bright surface targets. Therefore, MERIS black-sky albedo (BSA data from the period October 2002 to October 2006 were aggregated to a grid of 0.25° × 0.25° for each month of the year and for different spectral channels. In contrary to other available surface reflectivity datasets, MERIS includes channels at 754 nm and 775 nm which are located close to the spectral windows required for O2 A-band cloud retrievals. The MERIS BSA in the near-infrared compares well to Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS derived BSA with an average difference lower than 1% and a correlation coefficient of 0.98. However, when relating MERIS BSA to GOME LER a distinctly lower correlation (0.80 and enhanced scatter is found. Effective cloud fractions from two exemplary months (January and July 2006 of Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY data were subsequently derived with FRESCO+ and compared to those from the Heidelberg Iterative Cloud Retrieval Utilities (HICRU algorithm. The MERIS climatology generally improves FRESCO+ effective cloud fractions. In particular small cloud fractions are in better agreement with HICRU. This is of importance for atmospheric

Climatological effects on heliohydroelectric (HHE) power generation. [Based on evaporation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kettani, M A

1973-12-01

Large scale conversion of solar energy into electricity can be efficiently made by transforming first the solar energy into hydraulic energy by evaporation. This concept has been presented at the International Conference of 1971. Since then work has been done to correlate the power generated by an HHE plant to the climatological variables of a region. The effects of such variables as air temperature, relative humidity, station pressure, and wind speed on the generated power are discussed. The Dawhat Salwah area is being emphasized; however, the results could be generalized to other arid zones.

Active Learning in Introductory Climatology.

Science.gov (United States)

Dewey, Kenneth F.; Meyer, Steven J.

2000-01-01

Introduces a software package available for the climatology curriculum that determines possible climatic events according to a long-term climate history. Describes the integration of the software into the curriculum and presents examples of active learning. (Contains 19 references.) (YDS)

A Radar Climatology for Germany - a 16-year high resolution precipitation data and its possibilities

Science.gov (United States)

Walawender, Ewelina; Winterrath, Tanja; Brendel, Christoph; Hafer, Mario; Junghänel, Thomas; Klameth, Anna; Weigl, Elmar; Becker, Andreas

2017-04-01

One of the main features of heavy precipitation events is their small-scale distribution. Despite a local occurrence, these intensive rainfalls may, however, cause most serious damage and have significant impact on the whole river basin area resulting in e.g. flash floods or urban flooding. Thus, it is of great importance not only to detect the life-cycle of extreme precipitation during its occurrence but also to collect precise climatological information on such events. The German weather service (Deutscher Wetterdienst) operates a very dense network of more than 2000 weather stations collecting data on precipitation. It is however not sufficient for detecting spatially limited phenomena. Thanks to radar data, current monitoring of such events is possible. A quality control process is applied to real-time radar products, however only automatic rain gauges data can be used in the adjustment procedure. To merge both radar data and all available rain gauges data, the radar climatology dataset was established. Within the framework of a project financed by the federal agencies' strategic alliance 'Adaptation to Climate Change', 16 years (2001-2016) of radar data have been reanalyzed in order to gain a homogenous, quality-controlled, high-resolution precipitation data set suitable for analyzing extreme events in a climatological approach. Additional corrections methods (e.g. clutter, spokes and beam height correction) were defined and used for the reprocessing procedure to enhance the data quality. Although the time series is still rather short for a climatology, for the first time the data set allows an insight into e.g. the distribution, size, life cycle, and duration of extreme events that cannot be measured by point measurements alone. All radar climatology products share the same spatial and temporal coverage. The whole dataset has been produced for the area of Germany. With the relatively high spatial resolution of 1km, the data can be used as a component of wide

Eight Year Climatologies from Observational (AIRS) and Model (MERRA) Data

Science.gov (United States)

Hearty, Thomas; Savtchenko, Andrey; Won, Young-In; Theobalk, Mike; Vollmer, Bruce; Manning, Evan; Smith, Peter; Ostrenga, Dana; Leptoukh, Greg

2010-01-01

We examine climatologies derived from eight years of temperature, water vapor, cloud, and trace gas observations made by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument flying on the Aqua satellite and compare them to similar climatologies constructed with data from a global assimilation model, the Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). We use the AIRS climatologies to examine anomalies and trends in the AIRS data record. Since sampling can be an issue for infrared satellites in low earth orbit, we also use the MERRA data to examine the AIRS sampling biases. By sampling the MERRA data at the AIRS space-time locations both with and without the AIRS quality control we estimate the sampling bias of the AIRS climatology and the atmospheric conditions where AIRS has a lower sampling rate. While the AIRS temperature and water vapor sampling biases are small at low latitudes, they can be more than a few degrees in temperature or 10 percent in water vapor at higher latitudes. The largest sampling biases are over desert. The AIRS and MERRA data are available from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). The AIRS climatologies we used are available for analysis with the GIOVANNI data exploration tool. (see, http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov).

Summarizing metocean operating conditions as a climatology of marine hazards

Science.gov (United States)

Reid, Heather; Finnis, Joel

2018-03-01

Marine occupations are plagued by some of the highest accident and mortality rates of any occupation, due in part to the variety and severity of environmental hazards presented by the ocean environment. In order to better study and communicate the potential impacts of these hazards on occupational health and safety, a semi-objective, hazard-focused climatology of a particularly dangerous marine environment (Northwestern Atlantic) has been developed. Specifically, climate has been summarized as the frequency with which responsible government agencies are expected to issue relevant warnings or watches, couching results in language relevant to marine stakeholders. Applying cluster analysis to warning/watch frequencies identified seven distinct `hazard climatologies', ranging from near-Arctic conditions to areas dominated by calm seas and warm waters. Spatial and temporal variability in these clusters reflects relevant annual cycles, such as the advance/retreat of sea ice and shifts in the Atlantic storm track; the clusters also highlight regions and seasons with comparable operational risks. Our approach is proposed as an effective means to summarize and communicate marine risk with stakeholders, and a potential framework for describing climate change impacts.

Projections of Three-Dimensional Regions

Science.gov (United States)

Martinez, Felix; Rosa, De La

2005-01-01

When first-year calculus students are interested in studying double integrals, they can find, in standard textbooks, a detailed description of the different regions of integration. The aims of this paper are: to give a criterion to select the plane that will be projected, to classify the projections, and to give a simple rule to obtain them.…

Africa region population projections - 1988-89

OpenAIRE

Vu, My T.; Bos, Eduard; Bulatao, Rodolfo A.

1988-01-01

The report which is part of a series, presents population projection tables for each country in the Africa region. The report provides an explanation on projection results as well as a description of the projection methodology, summarizing the main results. The projections in the report cover the period 1985 - 2150. This time period allows countries to approach stability. The key elements in these projections are the base year (mid 1985). Total population estimates and age - sex structures ar...

An updated analysis of the Lucas Heights climatology 1991-2003

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clark, G.H.

2003-12-01

Meteorological data collected from 1991 to 2003 in the Lucas Heights region have been summarised to provide an update on the climatology. This report represents analysis of data collected at the Lucas Heights Science and Technology Centre since 1991 when an advanced digital recording system was installed. The small network of meteorological stations installed in the surrounding region since 1993 has allowed an investigation of the influence of complex terrain on wind flow and atmospheric dispersion patterns. For a period between 1999 and 2001 a Bureau of Meteorology disdrometer was installed at Lucas Heights to investigate raindrop size distributions. A large number of statistical summaries for all meteorological data are presented in in two appendices at the end of the report as a resource for reference purposes

Tropopause referenced ozone climatology and inter-annual variability (1994–2003 from the MOZAIC programme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thouret

2006-01-01

Full Text Available The MOZAIC programme collects ozone and water vapour data using automatic equipment installed on board five long-range Airbus A340 aircraft flying regularly all over the world since August 1994. Those measurements made between September 1994 and August 1996 allowed the first accurate ozone climatology at 9–12 km altitude to be generated. The seasonal variability of the tropopause height has always provided a problem when constructing climatologies in this region. To remove any signal from the seasonal and synoptic scale variability in tropopause height we have chosen in this further study of these and subsequent data to reference our climatology to the altitude of the tropopause. We define the tropopause as a mixing zone 30 hPa thick across the 2 pvu potential vorticity surface. A new ozone climatology is now available for levels characteristic of the upper troposphere (UT and the lower stratosphere (LS regardless of the seasonal variations of the tropopause over the period 1994–2003. Moreover, this new presentation has allowed an estimation of the monthly mean climatological ozone concentration at the tropopause showing a sine seasonal variation with a maximum in May (120 ppbv and a minimum in November (65 ppbv. Besides, we present a first assessment of the inter-annual variability of ozone in this particular critical region. The overall increase in the UTLS is about 1%/yr for the 9 years sampled. However, enhanced concentrations about 10–15 % higher than the other years were recorded in 1998 and 1999 in both the UT and the LS. This so-called '1998–1999 anomaly' may be attributed to a combination of different processes involving large scale modes of atmospheric variability, circulation features and local or global pollution, but the most dominant one seems to involve the variability of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO as we find a strong positive correlation (above 0.60 between ozone recorded in the upper troposphere and the NAO

A global climatology of the mesospheric sodium layer from GOMOS data during the 2002–2008 period

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D. Fussen

2010-10-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a climatology of the mesospheric sodium layer built from the processing of 7 years of GOMOS data. With respect to preliminary results already published for the year 2003, a more careful analysis was applied to the averaging of occultations inside the climatological bins (10° in latitude-1 month. Also, the slant path absorption lines of the Na doublet around 589 nm shows evidence of partial saturation that was responsible for an underestimation of the Na concentration in our previous results. The sodium climatology has been validated with respect to the Fort Collins lidar measurements and, to a lesser extent, to the OSIRIS 2003–2004 data. Despite the important natural sodium variability, we have shown that the Na vertical column has a marked semi-annual oscillation at low latitudes that merges into an annual oscillation in the polar regions,a spatial distribution pattern that was unreported so far. The sodium layer seems to be clearly influenced by the mesospheric global circulation and the altitude of the layer shows clear signs of subsidence during polar winter. The climatology has been parameterized by time-latitude robust fits to allow for easy use. Taking into account the non-linearity of the transmittance due to partial saturation, an experimental approach is proposed to derive mesospheric temperatures from limb remote sounding measurements.

An Aircraft-Based Upper Troposphere Lower Stratosphere O3, CO, and H2O Climatology for the Northern Hemisphere

Science.gov (United States)

Tilmes, S.; Pan, L. L.; Hoor, P.; Atlas, E.; Avery, M. A.; Campos, T.; Christensen, L. E.; Diskin, G. S.; Gao, R.-S.; Herman, R. L.;

Global Daily Climatology Network: Kazakhstan subset

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This dataset is a compilation of in situ daily meteorological observations for Kazakhstan within the framework of joint efforts to create Global Daily Climatology...

Situational Lightning Climatologies for Central Florida: Phase IV: Central Florida Flow Regime Based Climatologies of Lightning Probabilities

Science.gov (United States)

Bauman, William H., III

2009-01-01

The threat of lightning is a daily concern during the warm season in Florida. Research has revealed distinct spatial and temporal distributions of lightning occurrence that are strongly influenced by large-scale atmospheric flow regimes. Previously, the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) calculated the gridded lightning climatologies based on seven flow regimes over Florida for 1-, 3- and 6-hr intervals in 5-, 10-, 20-, and 30-NM diameter range rings around the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) and eight other airfields in the National Weather Service in Melbourne (NWS MLB) county warning area (CWA). In this update to the work, the AMU recalculated the lightning climatologies for using individual lightning strike data to improve the accuracy of the climatologies. The AMU included all data regardless of flow regime as one of the stratifications, added monthly stratifications, added three years of data to the period of record and used modified flow regimes based work from the AMU's Objective Lightning Probability Forecast Tool, Phase II. The AMU made changes so the 5- and 10-NM radius range rings are consistent with the aviation forecast requirements at NWS MLB, while the 20- and 30-NM radius range rings at the SLF assist the Spaceflight Meteorology Group in making forecasts for weather Flight Rule violations during Shuttle landings. The AMU also updated the graphical user interface with the new data.

Quantitative precipitation climatology over the Himalayas by using Precipitation Radar on Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and a dense network of rain-gauges

Science.gov (United States)

Yatagai, A.

2010-09-01

Quantified grid observation data at a reasonable resolution are indispensable for environmental monitoring as well as for predicting future change of mountain environment. However quantified datasets have not been available for the Himalayan region. Hence we evaluate climatological precipitation data around the Himalayas by using Precipitation Radar (PR) data acquired by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) over 10 years of observation. To validate and adjust these patterns, we used a dense network of rain gauges collected by the Asian Precipitation—Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources (APHRODITE Water Resources) project (http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/precip/). We used more than 2600 stations which have more than 10-year monthly precipitation over the Himalayan region (75E-105E, 20-36N) including country data of Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, and China. The region we studied is so topographically complicated that horizontal patterns are not uniform. Therefore, every path data of PR2A25 (near-surface rain) was averaged in a 0.05-degree grid and a 10-year monthly average was computed (hereafter we call PR). On the other hand, for rain-gauge, we first computed cell averages if each 0.05-degree grid cell has 10 years observation or more. Here we refer to the 0.05-degree rain-gauge climatology data as RG data. On the basis of comparisons between the RG and PR composite values, we defined the parameters of the regressions to correct the monthly climatology value based on the rain gauge observations. Compared with the RG, the PR systematically underestimated precipitation by 28-38% in summer (July-September). Significant correlation between TRMM/PR and rain-gauge data was found for all months, but the correlation is relatively low in winter. The relationship is investigated for different elevation zones, and the PR was found to underestimate RG data in most zones, except for certain zones in

Selection of projects in the regional energy planning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramirez P, R.; Navas M, F.

1993-01-01

The processes of regional energy planning have changed vastly in the last years and it will continue changing in the future for the new norm of the State. This work tries to show the use of systematic tools in the selection of regional energy projects. It discusses a methodology of selection of projects based on a multivariate technical. It is applied in the Southwestern region of Colombia and both selection and priority results are obtained. The designed methodology allows to make the selection of projects in an automatic way with a software designed for such an end. In the case of Southwestern it arrives to a briefcase of projects for an energy plan and made for other races

Investigating a solar influence on cloud cover using the North American Regional Reanalysis data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krahenbuhl Daniel Scott

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The controversial connection between cosmic rays, solar activity, and cloud cover is investigated using a climatological reconstructed reanalysis product: the North American Regional Reanalysis which provides high-resolution, low, mid-level, high, and total cloud cover data over a Lambert conformal conic projection permitting land/ocean discrimination. Pearson’s product-moment regional correlations were obtained between monthly cloud cover data and solar variability indicators, cosmic ray neutron monitors, several climatological indices, including the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO, and between cloud layers. Regions of the mid-latitude oceans exhibited a positive correlation with cosmic ray flux. Additionally, this maritime low cloud cover exhibits the only failed correlation significance with other altitudes. The cross correlation reveals that cloud cover is positively correlated everywhere but for ocean low cloud cover, supporting the unique response of the marine layer. The results of this investigation suggest that with the assumption that solar forcing does impact cloud cover, measurements of solar activity exhibits a slightly higher correlation than GCRs. The only instance where GCRs exhibit a positive regional correlation with cloud cover is for maritime low clouds. The AMO exerts the greatest control of cloud cover in the NARR domain.

Climatology of damage-causing hailstorms over Germany

Science.gov (United States)

Kunz, M.; Puskeiler, M.; Schmidberger, M.

2012-04-01

In several regions of Central Europe, such as southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and northern Italy, hailstorms often cause substantial damage to buildings, crops, or automobiles on the order of several million EUR. In the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, for example, most of the insured damage to buildings is caused by large hailstones. Due to both their local-scale extent and insufficient direct monitoring systems, hail swaths are not captured accurately and uniquely by a single observation system. Remote-sensing systems such as radars are able to detect convection signals in a basic way, but they lack the ability to discern a clear relation between measured intensity and hail on the ground. These shortcomings hamper statistical analysis on the hail probability and intensity. Hail modelling thus is a big challenge for the insurance industry. Within the project HARIS-CC (Hail Risk and Climate Change), different meteorological observations are combined (3D / 2D radar, lightning, satellite and radiosounding data) to obtain a comprehensive picture of the hail climatology over Germany. The various approaches were tested and calibrated with loss data from different insurance companies between 2005 and 2011. Best results are obtained by considering the vertical distance between the 0°C level of the atmosphere and the echo top height estimated from 3D reflectivity data from the radar network of German Weather Service (DWD). Additionally, frequency, intensity, width, and length of hail swaths are determined by applying a cell tracking algorithm to the 3D radar data (TRACE3D; Handwerker, 2002). The hailstorm tracks identified are merged with loss data using a geographical information system (GIS) to verify damage-causing hail on the ground. Evaluating the hailstorm climatology revealed that hail probability exhibits high spatial variability even over short distances. An important issue is the spatial pattern of hail occurrence that is considered to be due to

Rainfall and Extratropical Transition of Tropical Cyclones: Simulation, Prediction, and Projection

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Maofeng

Rainfall and associated flood hazards are one of the major threats of tropical cyclones (TCs) to coastal and inland regions. The interaction of TCs with extratropical systems can lead to enhanced precipitation over enlarged areas through extratropical transition (ET). To achieve a comprehensive understanding of rainfall and ET associated with TCs, this thesis conducts weather-scale analyses by focusing on individual storms and climate-scale analyses by focusing on seasonal predictability and changing properties of climatology under global warming. The temporal and spatial rainfall evolution of individual storms, including Hurricane Irene (2011), Hurricane Hanna (2008), and Hurricane Sandy (2012), is explored using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model and a variety of hydrometeorological datasets. ET and Orographic mechanism are two key players in the rainfall distribution of Irene over regions experiencing most severe flooding. The change of TC rainfall under global warming is explored with the Forecast-oriented Low Ocean Resolution (FLOR) climate model under representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 scenario. Despite decreased TC frequency, FLOR projects increased landfalling TC rainfall over most regions of eastern United States, highlighting the risk of increased flood hazards. Increased storm rain rate is an important player of increased landfalling TC rainfall. A higher atmospheric resolution version of FLOR (HiFLOR) model projects increased TC rainfall at global scales. The increase of TC intensity and environmental water vapor content scaled by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation are two key factors that explain the projected increase of TC rainfall. Analyses on the simulation, prediction, and projection of the ET activity with FLOR are conducted in the North Atlantic. FLOR model exhibits good skills in simulating many aspects of present-day ET climatology. The 21st-century-projection under RCP4.5 scenario demonstrates the dominant role of ET

SESAME as a Model Project for Other Regions

Science.gov (United States)

Winick, Herman

2013-03-01

UNESCO became the umbrella organization for SESAME at its Executive Board 164th session, May 2002. The following comments about SESAME were made by this board: ``a quintessential UNESCO project combining capacity building with vital peace-building through science'' and ``a model project for other regions.'' Now that SESAME is well underway, other regions (e.g.; Africa and Central Asia) should be made aware of this progress, and they should be welcomed to join SESAME as a first step in developing similar projects in their region. Students and scientists from other regions should be encouraged to attend SESAME Users' meeting, schools, workshops, etc. where they can learn about synchrotron radiation sources, beamlines, and science. They should be invited to join SESAME scientists in designing and commissioning accelerators and beamlines, gaining relevant experience for their own projects and helping SESAME in the process. Work supported by DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences

The use of normalized climatological anomalies to rank synoptic-scale events and their relation to Weather Types

Science.gov (United States)

Ramos, A. M.; Lorenzo, M. N.; Gimeno, L.; Nieto, R.; Añel, J. A.

2009-09-01

Several methods have been developed to rank meteorological events in terms of severity, social impact or economic impacts. These classifications are not always objective since they depend of several factors, for instance, the observation network is biased towards the densely populated urban areas against rural or oceanic areas. It is also very important to note that not all rare synoptic-scale meteorological events attract significant media attention. In this work we use a comprehensive method of classifying synoptic-scale events adapted from Hart and Grumm, 2001, to the European region (30N-60N, 30W-15E). The main motivation behind this method is that the more unusual the event (a cold outbreak, a heat wave, or a flood), for a given region, the higher ranked it must be. To do so, we use four basic meteorological variables (Height, Temperature, Wind and Specific Humidity) from NCEP reanalysis dataset over the range of 1000hPa to 200hPa at a daily basis from 1948 to 2004. The climatology used embraces the 1961-1990 period. For each variable, the analysis of raking climatological anomalies was computed taking into account the daily normalized departure from climatology at different levels. For each day (from 1948 to 2004) we have four anomaly measures, one for each variable, and another, a combined where the anomaly (total anomaly) is the average of the anomaly of the four variables. Results will be analyzed on a monthly, seasonal and annual basis. Seasonal trends and variability will also be shown. In addition, and given the extent of the database, the expected return periods associated with the anomalies are revealed. Moreover, we also use an automated version of the Lamb weather type (WT) classification scheme (Jones et al, 1993) adapted for the Galicia area (Northwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula) by Lorenzo et al (2008) in order to compute the daily local circulation regimes in this area. By combining the corresponding daily WT with the five anomaly

Projecting twenty-first century regional sea-level changes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Slangen, A.B.A.; Carson, M.; Katsman, C.A.; van de Wal, R.S.W.; Köhl, A.; Vermeersen, L.L.A.; Stammer, D.

2014-01-01

We present regional sea-level projections and associated uncertainty estimates for the end of the 21 (st) century. We show regional projections of sea-level change resulting from changing ocean circulation, increased heat uptake and atmospheric pressure in CMIP5 climate models. These are combined

Aurora Borealis. Project Cycle Management in Regional Development

OpenAIRE

Andra Aldea-Partanen; Heimo Keränen; Susanna Nevalainen

2003-01-01

This paper aims to analyse Project Cycle Management approach in the context of regional development. The theoretical framework covers contemporary concepts typical for regional development and specific project/programme management tools. The comparative approach is used to take into account the two versions of Project Cycle Management presented by European Commission among evaluation methods and instruments, in 1993 and 2001. A practical application is drawn using mid-term evaluation of Baren...

Ozone climatology over western Mediterranean Sea

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pibiri, G.; Randaccio, P.; Serra, A.; Sollai, A.

1984-01-01

A preliminary climatology of atmospheric ozone over Western Mediterranean Sea is given by analysis of the upper observations of O 3 carried out at Cagliari-Elmas station from 1968 to 1976. Some peculiarities are here illustrated and discussed

Campania Region's Educational Quality Facilities Project

Science.gov (United States)

Ponti, Giorgio

2009-01-01

This article describes the Educational Quality Facilities project undertaken by Italy's Campania Region to provide quality facilities to all of its communities basing new spaces on the "Flexible Learning Module". The objectives of the five-year project are to: build and equip new educational spaces; improve the quality of existing…

High-resolution nested model simulations of the climatological circulation in the southeastern Mediterranean Sea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Brenner

2003-01-01

Full Text Available As part of the Mediterranean Forecasting System Pilot Project (MFSPP we have implemented a high-resolution (2 km horizontal grid, 30 sigma levels version of the Princeton Ocean Model for the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea. The domain extends 200 km offshore and includes the continental shelf and slope, and part of the open sea. The model is nested in an intermediate resolution (5.5 km grid model that covers the entire Levantine, Ionian, and Aegean Sea. The nesting is one way so that velocity, temperature, and salinity along the boundaries are interpolated from the relevant intermediate model variables. An integral constraint is applied so that the net mass flux across the open boundaries is identical to the net flux in the intermediate model. The model is integrated for three perpetual years with surface forcing specified from monthly mean climatological wind stress and heat fluxes. The model is stable and spins up within the first year to produce a repeating seasonal cycle throughout the three-year integration period. While there is some internal variability evident in the results, it is clear that, due to the relatively small domain, the results are strongly influenced by the imposed lateral boundary conditions. The results closely follow the simulation of the intermediate model. The main improvement is in the simulation over the narrow shelf region, which is not adequately resolved by the coarser grid model. Comparisons with direct current measurements over the shelf and slope show reasonable agreement despite the limitations of the climatological forcing. The model correctly simulates the direction and the typical speeds of the flow over the shelf and slope, but has difficulty properly re-producing the seasonal cycle in the speed.Key words. Oceanography: general (continental shelf processes; numerical modelling; ocean prediction

Wind Climate Analyses for SRTC's Central Climatology Site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weber, A.H.

2003-01-01

This report was written to present climatological summaries of the wind data at the Central Climatology (CC) tower in a convenient format and to point out some features of the wind speed and direction that have not been widely appreciated in the past. Short-term (two-week) wind roses provide a means to demonstrate the temporal and spatial relationships that wind speed and direction undergo using a ten-year database from the CC tower. These relationships are best demonstrated by examining the figures provided in this report or looking at loops of computer-generated images provided by the authors

Quality Controlled Local Climatological Data (QCLCD) Publication

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Quality Controlled Local Climatological Data (QCLCD) contains summaries from major airport weather stations that include a daily account of temperature extremes,...

Climatology of the Savannah River Plant site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoel, D.D.

1984-06-01

This document contains information on the climatological characteristics of the SRP site, as well as information on relative concentrations and deposition for specific radionuclides. 42 references, 42 figures, 45 tables

Snow Climatology of Arctic Sea Ice: Comparison of Reanalysis and Climate Model Data with In Situ Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Chevooruvalappil Chandran, B.; Pittana, M.; Haas, C.

2015-12-01

Snow on sea ice is a critical and complex factor influencing sea ice processes. Deep snow with a high albedo and low thermal conductivity inhibits ice growth in winter and minimizes ice loss in summer. Very shallow or absent snow promotes ice growth in winter and ice loss in summer. The timing of snow ablation critically impacts summer sea ice mass balance. Here we assess the accuracy of various snow on sea ice data products from reanalysis and modeling comparing them with in situ measurements. The latter are based on the Warren et al. (1999) monthly climatology derived from snow ruler measurements between 1954-1991, and on daily snow depth retrievals from few drifting ice mass balance buoys (IMB) with sufficiently long observations spanning the summer season. These were compared with snow depth data from the National Center for Environmental Prediction Department of Energy Reanalysis 2 (NCEP), the Community Climate System Model 4 (CCSM4), and the Canadian Earth System Model 2 (CanESM2). Results are quite variable in different years and regions. However, there is often good agreement between CanESM2 and IMB snow depth during the winter accumulation and spring melt periods. Regional analyses show that over the western Arctic covered primarily with multiyear ice NCEP snow depths are in good agreement with the Warren climatology while CCSM4 overestimates snow depth. However, in the Eastern Arctic which is dominated by first-year ice the opposite behavior is observed. Compared to the Warren climatology CanESM2 underestimates snow depth in all regions. Differences between different snow depth products are as large as 10 to 20 cm, with large consequences for the sea ice mass balance. However, it is also very difficult to evaluate the accuracy of reanalysis and model snow depths due to a lack of extensive, continuous in situ measurements.

Correlation and multifractality in climatological time series

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pedron, I T

2010-01-01

Climate can be described by statistical analysis of mean values of atmospheric variables over a period. It is possible to detect correlations in climatological time series and to classify its behavior. In this work the Hurst exponent, which can characterize correlation and persistence in time series, is obtained by using the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) method. Data series of temperature, precipitation, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, maximum squall, atmospheric pressure and randomic series are studied. Furthermore, the multifractality of such series is analyzed applying the Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MF-DFA) method. The results indicate presence of correlation (persistent character) in all climatological series and multifractality as well. A larger set of data, and longer, could provide better results indicating the universality of the exponents.

GMMIP (v1.0) contribution to CMIP6: Global Monsoons Model Inter-comparison Project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhou, Tianjun; Turner, Andrew G.; Kinter, James L.; Wang, Bin; Qian, Yun; Chen, Xiaolong; Wu, Bo; Wang, Bin; Liu, Bo; Zou, Liwei; He, Bian

2016-10-10

The Global Monsoons Model Inter-comparison Project (GMMIP) has been endorsed by the panel of Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP) as one of the participating model inter-comparison projects (MIPs) in the sixth phase of CMIP (CMIP6). The focus of GMMIP is on monsoon climatology, variability, prediction and projection, which is relevant to four of the “Grand Challenges” proposed by the World Climate Research Programme. At present, 21 international modeling groups are committed to joining GMMIP. This overview paper introduces the motivation behind GMMIP and the scientific questions it intends to answer. Three tiers of experiments, of decreasing priority, are designed to examine (a) model skill in simulating the climatology and interannual-to-multidecadal variability of global monsoons forced by the sea surface temperature during historical climate period; (b) the roles of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in driving variations of the global and regional monsoons; and (c) the effects of large orographic terrain on the establishment of the monsoons. The outputs of the CMIP6 Diagnostic, Evaluation and Characterization of Klima experiments (DECK), “historical” simulation and endorsed MIPs will also be used in the diagnostic analysis of GMMIP to give a comprehensive understanding of the roles played by different external forcings, potential improvements in the simulation of monsoon rainfall at high resolution and reproducibility at decadal timescales. The implementation of GMMIP will improve our understanding of the fundamental physics of changes in the global and regional monsoons over the past 140 years and ultimately benefit monsoons prediction and projection in the current century.

Climatology of salt transitions and implications for stone weathering.

Science.gov (United States)

Grossi, C M; Brimblecombe, P; Menéndez, B; Benavente, D; Harris, I; Déqué, M

2011-06-01

This work introduces the notion of salt climatology. It shows how climate affects salt thermodynamic and the potential to relate long-term salt damage to climate types. It mainly focuses on specific sites in Western Europe, which include some cities in France and Peninsular Spain. Salt damage was parameterised using the number of dissolution-crystallisation events for unhydrated (sodium chloride) and hydrated (sodium sulphate) systems. These phase transitions have been calculated using daily temperature and relative humidity from observation meteorological data and Climate Change models' output (HadCM3 and ARPEGE). Comparing the number of transitions with meteorological seasonal data allowed us to develop techniques to estimate the frequency of salt transitions based on the local climatology. Results show that it is possible to associate the Köppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. Temperate fully humid climates seem to offer the highest potential for salt damage and possible higher number of transitions in summer. Climates with dry summers tend to show a lesser frequency of transitions in summer. The analysis of temperature, precipitation and relative output from Climate Change models suggests changes in the Köppen-Geiger climate types and changes in the patterns of salt damage. For instance, West Europe areas with a fully humid climate may change to a more Mediterranean like or dry climates, and consequently the seasonality of different salt transitions. The accuracy and reliability of the projections might be improved by simultaneously running multiple climate models (ensembles). Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Rainfall Climatology over Asir Region, Saudi Arabia

Science.gov (United States)

Sharif, H.; Furl, C.; Al-Zahrani, M.

2012-04-01

Arid and semi-arid lands occupy about one-third of the land surface of the earth and support about one-fifth of the world population. The Asir area in Saudi Arabia is an example of these areas faced with the problem of maintaining sustainable water resources. This problem is exacerbated by the high levels of population growth, land use changes, increasing water demand, and climate variability. In this study, the characteristics of decade-scale variations in precipitation are examined in more detail for Asir region. The spatio-temporal distributions of rainfall over the region are analyzed. The objectives are to identify the sensitivity, magnitude, and range of changes in annual and seasonal evapotranspiration resulting from observed decade-scale precipitation variations. An additional objective is to characterize orographic controls on the space-time variability of rainfall. The rainfall data is obtained from more than 30 rain gauges spread over the region.

Regional climate projections for the MENA-CORDEX domain: analysis of projected temperature and precipitation changes

Science.gov (United States)

Hänsler, Andreas; Weber, Torsten; Eggert, Bastian; Saeed, Fahad; Jacob, Daniela

2014-05-01

Within the CORDEX initiative a multi-model suite of regionalized climate change information will be made available for several regions of the world. The German Climate Service Center (CSC) is taking part in this initiative by applying the regional climate model REMO to downscale global climate projections of different coupled general circulation models (GCMs) for several CORDEX domains. Also for the MENA-CORDEX domain, a set of regional climate change projections has been established at the CSC by downscaling CMIP5 projections of the Max-Planck-Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) for the scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 with the regional model REMO for the time period from 1950 to 2100 to a horizontal resolution of 0.44 degree. In this study we investigate projected changes in future climate conditions over the domain towards the end of the 21st century. Focus in the analysis is given to projected changes in the temperature and rainfall characteristics and their differences for the two scenarios will be highlighted.

Climatology of winter transition days for the contiguous USA, 1951-2007

Science.gov (United States)

Hondula, David M.; Davis, Robert E.

2011-01-01

In middle and high latitudes, climate change could impact the frequency and characteristics of frontal passages. Although transitions between air masses are significant features of the general circulation that influence human activities and other surface processes, they are much more difficult to objectively identify than single variables like temperature or even extreme events like fires, droughts, and floods. The recently developed Spatial Synoptic Classification (SSC) provides a fairly objective means of identifying frontal passages. In this research, we determine the specific meteorological patterns represented by the SSC's Transition category, a "catch-all" group that attempts to identify those days that cannot be characterized as a single, homogeneous air mass type. The result is a detailed transition climatology for the continental USA. We identify four subtypes of the Transition category based on intra-day sea level pressure change and dew point temperature change. Across the contiguous USA, most transition days are identified as cold fronts and warm fronts during the winter season. Among the two less common subtypes, transition days in which the dew point temperature and pressure both rise are more frequently observed across the western states, and days in which both variables fall are more frequently observed in coastal regions. The relative frequencies of wintertime warm and cold fronts have changed over the period 1951-2007. Relative cold front frequency has significantly increased in the Northeast and Midwest regions, and warm front frequencies have declined in the Midwest, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific Northwest regions. The overall shift toward cold fronts and away from warm fronts across the northern USA arises from a combination of an enhanced ridge over western North America and a northward shift of storm tracks throughout the mid-latitudes. These results are consistent with projections of climate change associated with elevated greenhouse gas

A Global Climatology of Tropospheric and Stratospheric Ozone Derived from Aura OMI and MLS Measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Ziemke, J.R.; Chandra, S.; Labow, G.; Bhartia, P. K.; Froidevaux, L.; Witte, J. C.

2011-01-01

A global climatology of tropospheric and stratospheric column ozone is derived by combining six years of Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) ozone measurements for the period October 2004 through December 2010. The OMI/MLS tropospheric ozone climatology exhibits large temporal and spatial variability which includes ozone accumulation zones in the tropical south Atlantic year-round and in the subtropical Mediterranean! Asia region in summer months. High levels of tropospheric ozone in the northern hemisphere also persist in mid-latitudes over the eastern North American and Asian continents extending eastward over the Pacific Ocean. For stratospheric ozone climatology from MLS, largest ozone abundance lies in the northern hemisphere in the latitude range 70degN-80degN in February-April and in the southern hemisphere around 40degS-50degS during months August-October. The largest stratospheric ozone abundances in the northern hemisphere lie over North America and eastern Asia extending eastward across the Pacific Ocean and in the southern hemisphere south of Australia extending eastward across the dateline. With the advent of many newly developing 3D chemistry and transport models it is advantageous to have such a dataset for evaluating the performance of the models in relation to dynamical and photochemical processes controlling the ozone distributions in the troposphere and stratosphere.

AFSC/ABL: Auke Bay Climatology 1959-2013

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Data set includes available climatological and related physical environmental records for Auke Bay, Auke Creek and Auke Lake beginning in 1959. Daily high and low...

User-Defined Meteorological (MET) Profiles from Climatological and Extreme Condition Data

Science.gov (United States)

2018-04-01

ARL-TN-0876 ● MAR 2018 US Army Research Laboratory User-Defined Meteorological (MET) Profiles from Climatological and Extreme...needed. Do not return it to the originator. ARL-TN-0876 ● MAR 2018 US Army Research Laboratory User-Defined Meteorological (MET...User-Defined Meteorological (MET) Profiles from Climatological and Extreme Condition Data 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM

Climatological Downscaling and Evaluation of AGRMET Precipitation Analyses Over the Continental U.S.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, M.; Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Eylander, J. B.; Daly, C.; Tian, Y.; Zeng, J.

2007-05-01

The spatially distributed application of a land surface model (LSM) over a region of interest requires the application of similarly distributed precipitation fields that can be derived from various sources, including surface gauge networks, surface-based radar, and orbital platforms. The spatial variability of precipitation influences the spatial organization of soil temperature and moisture states and, consequently, the spatial variability of land- atmosphere fluxes. The accuracy of spatially-distributed precipitation fields can contribute significantly to the uncertainty of model-based hydrological states and fluxes at the land surface. Collaborations between the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), NASA, and Oregon State University have led to improvements in the processing of meteorological forcing inputs for the NASA-GSFC Land Information System (LIS; Kumar et al. 2006), a sophisticated framework for LSM operation and model coupling experiments. Efforts at AFWA toward the production of surface hydrometeorological products are currently in transition from the legacy Agricultural Meteorology modeling system (AGRMET) to use of the LIS framework and procedures. Recent enhancements to meteorological input processing for application to land surface models in LIS include the assimilation of climate-based information for the spatial interpolation and downscaling of precipitation fields. Climatological information included in the LIS-based downscaling procedure for North America is provided by a monthly high-resolution PRISM (Daly et al. 1994, 2002; Daly 2006) dataset based on a 30-year analysis period. The combination of these sources and methods attempts to address the strengths and weaknesses of available legacy products, objective interpolation methods, and the PRISM knowledge-based methodology. All of these efforts are oriented on an operational need for timely estimation of spatial precipitation fields at adequate spatial resolution for customer dissemination and

The global climatology of an interannually varying air-sea flux data set

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Large, W.G.; Yeager, S.G. [National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)

2009-08-15

The air-sea fluxes of momentum, heat, freshwater and their components have been computed globally from 1948 at frequencies ranging from 6-hourly to monthly. All fluxes are computed over the 23 years from 1984 to 2006, but radiation prior to 1984 and precipitation before 1979 are given only as climatological mean annual cycles. The input data are based on NCEP reanalysis only for the near surface vector wind, temperature, specific humidity and density, and on a variety of satellite based radiation, sea surface temperature, sea-ice concentration and precipitation products. Some of these data are adjusted to agree in the mean with a variety of more reliable satellite and in situ measurements, that themselves are either too short a duration, or too regional in coverage. The major adjustments are a general increase in wind speed, decrease in humidity and reduction in tropical solar radiation. The climatological global mean air-sea heat and freshwater fluxes (1984-2006) then become 2 W/m{sup 2} and -0.1 mg/m{sup 2} per second, respectively, down from 30 W/m{sup 2} and 3.4 mg/m{sup 2} per second for the unaltered data. However, decadal means vary from 7.3 W/m{sup 2} (1977-1986) to -0.3 W/m{sup 2} (1997-2006). The spatial distributions of climatological fluxes display all the expected features. A comparison of zonally averaged wind stress components across ocean sub-basins reveals large differences between available products due both to winds and to the stress calculation. Regional comparisons of the heat and freshwater fluxes reveal an alarming range among alternatives; typically 40 W/m{sup 2} and 10 mg/m{sup 2} per second, respectively. The implied ocean heat transports are within the uncertainty of estimates from ocean observations in both the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific basins. They show about 2.4 PW of tropical heating, of which 80% is transported to the north, mostly in the Atlantic. There is similar good agreement in freshwater transport at many latitudes in both

Spatio-temporal precipitation climatology over complex terrain using a censored additive regression model.

Science.gov (United States)

Stauffer, Reto; Mayr, Georg J; Messner, Jakob W; Umlauf, Nikolaus; Zeileis, Achim

2017-06-15

Flexible spatio-temporal models are widely used to create reliable and accurate estimates for precipitation climatologies. Most models are based on square root transformed monthly or annual means, where a normal distribution seems to be appropriate. This assumption becomes invalid on a daily time scale as the observations involve large fractions of zero observations and are limited to non-negative values. We develop a novel spatio-temporal model to estimate the full climatological distribution of precipitation on a daily time scale over complex terrain using a left-censored normal distribution. The results demonstrate that the new method is able to account for the non-normal distribution and the large fraction of zero observations. The new climatology provides the full climatological distribution on a very high spatial and temporal resolution, and is competitive with, or even outperforms existing methods, even for arbitrary locations.

The Middle Eastern Regional Irrigation Management Information Systems project-update

Science.gov (United States)

The Middle Eastern Regional Irrigation Management Information Systems Project (MERIMIS) was formulated at a meeting of experts from the region in Jordan in 2003. Funded by the U.S. Department of State, it is a cooperative regional project bringing together participants from Israel, Jordan, Palestini...

Updated climatological model predictions of ionospheric and HF propagation parameters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reilly, M.H.; Rhoads, F.J.; Goodman, J.M.; Singh, M.

1991-01-01

The prediction performances of several climatological models, including the ionospheric conductivity and electron density model, RADAR C, and Ionospheric Communications Analysis and Predictions Program, are evaluated for different regions and sunspot number inputs. Particular attention is given to the near-real-time (NRT) predictions associated with single-station updates. It is shown that a dramatic improvement can be obtained by using single-station ionospheric data to update the driving parameters for an ionospheric model for NRT predictions of f(0)F2 and other ionospheric and HF circuit parameters. For middle latitudes, the improvement extends out thousands of kilometers from the update point to points of comparable corrected geomagnetic latitude. 10 refs

Upper Limit for Regional Sea Level Projections

Science.gov (United States)

Jevrejeva, Svetlana; Jackson, Luke; Riva, Riccardo; Grinsted, Aslak; Moore, John

2016-04-01

With more than 150 million people living within 1 m of high tide future sea level rise is one of the most damaging aspects of warming climate. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (AR5 IPCC) noted that a 0.5 m rise in mean sea level will result in a dramatic increase the frequency of high water extremes - by an order of magnitude, or more in some regions. Thus the flood threat to the rapidly growing urban populations and associated infrastructure in coastal areas are major concerns for society. Hence, impact assessment, risk management, adaptation strategy and long-term decision making in coastal areas depend on projections of mean sea level and crucially its low probability, high impact, upper range. With probabilistic approach we produce regional sea level projections taking into account large uncertainties associated with Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets contribution. We calculate the upper limit (as 95%) for regional sea level projections by 2100 with RCP8.5 scenario, suggesting that for the most coastlines upper limit will exceed the global upper limit of 1.8 m.

Towards a generalization procedure for WRF mesoscale wind climatologies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hahmann, Andrea N.; Casso, P.; Campmany, E.

We present a method for generalizing wind climatologies generated from mesoscale model output (e.g. the Weather, Research and Forecasting (WRF) model.) The generalization procedure is based on Wind Atlas framework of WAsP and KAMM/WAsP, and been extensively in wind resources assessment in DTU Wind...... generalized wind climatologies estimated by the microscale model WAsP and the methodology presented here. For the Danish wind measurements the mean absolute error in the ‘raw’ wind speeds is 9.2%, while the mean absolute error in the generalized wind speeds is 4.1%. The generalization procedure has been...

Northern North Pacific Regional Climatology (NCEI Accession 0156768)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Northern North Pacific (NNP) plays a significant role in long-term earth and ocean climate change. It is also a region of high importance for regional marine...

Africa region population projections : 1990-91

OpenAIRE

Stephens, Patience W.; Bos, Eduard; Vu, My T.; Bulatao, Rodolfo A.

1991-01-01

As recently as the mid-1970s, the Africa region had a smaller population than the Asia, the Latin American and the Caribbean, or the Europe, Middle East, and North Africa regions. Explosive population growth of more than 3 percent per year, projected to decline only gradually, will make Africa the second largest region by 2005. Its share of the world's population will increase from less than 10 percent now to 20 percent in the middle of the next century and to 25 percent when stationarity is ...

RegionsТ Competition for Investment Projects in Forest Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Valentina Fedorovna Lapo

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The author considers the problem of competition between regions for investments. It is hypothesized that the presence of legislative stimulating benefits in a particular region, ceteris paribus, promotes investment flows in forest projects from other regions and is an instrumentl of inter-regional competition. To test the hypotheses the researcher uses a modified model with spatial weighted exogenous variables in order to assess the spatial effects. The obtained estimates indicate the presence of spatial effects, both negative (an inter-regional competition for investment and positive (agglomeration effects. The author argues that the process of inter-regional competition for investment in projects on forest development is caused by benefits under taxes and payments into the regional budget, regulation of pricing (including actions by natural and local monopolies and depreciation policy and solutions to put some forest projects in the list of priority ones. Along with this, the paper identifies agglomeration effects induced by a number of benefits: direct dealings in investment by financing or property contribution, subsidies, state guarantees, credit security and partial payment of interest

Climatology and Interannual Variability of Quasi-Global Intense Precipitation Using Satellite Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Ricko, Martina; Adler, Robert F.; Huffman, George J.

2016-01-01

Climatology and variations of recent mean and intense precipitation over a near-global (50 deg. S 50 deg. N) domain on a monthly and annual time scale are analyzed. Data used to derive daily precipitation to examine the effects of spatial and temporal coverage of intense precipitation are from the current Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) 3B42 version 7 precipitation product, with high spatial and temporal resolution during 1998 - 2013. Intense precipitation is defined by several different parameters, such as a 95th percentile threshold of daily precipitation, a mean precipitation that exceeds that percentile, or a fixed threshold of daily precipitation value [e.g., 25 and 50 mm day(exp -1)]. All parameters are used to identify the main characteristics of spatial and temporal variation of intense precipitation. High correlations between examined parameters are observed, especially between climatological monthly mean precipitation and intense precipitation, over both tropical land and ocean. Among the various parameters examined, the one best characterizing intense rainfall is a fraction of daily precipitation Great than or equal to 25 mm day(exp. -1), defined as a ratio between the intense precipitation above the used threshold and mean precipitation. Regions that experience an increase in mean precipitation likely experience a similar increase in intense precipitation, especially during the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. Improved knowledge of this intense precipitation regime and its strong connection to mean precipitation given by the fraction parameter can be used for monitoring of intense rainfall and its intensity on a global to regional scale.

Weather patterns and hydro-climatological precursors of extreme floods in Switzerland since 1868

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stucki, Peter; Rickli, Ralph; Broennimann, Stefan; Martius, Olivia; Wanner, Heinz; Bern Univ.; Grebner, Dietmar; Luterbacher, Juerg

2012-01-01

The generation of 24 extreme floods in large catchments of the central Alps is analyzed from instrumental and documentary data, newly digitized observations of precipitation (DigiHom) and 20 th Century Reanalysis (20CR) data. Extreme floods are determined by the 95 th percentile of differences between an annual flood and a defined contemporary flood. For a selection of six events between 1868 and 1910, we describe preconditioning elements such as precipitation, temperature, and snow cover anomalies. Specific weather patterns are assessed through a subjective analysis of three-dimensional atmospheric circulation. A focus is placed on synoptic-scale features including mid-tropospheric ascent, low-level moisture transport, propagation of cyclones, and temperature anomalies. We propose a hydro-meteorological classification of all 24 investigated events according to flood-generating weather conditions. Key elements of the upper-level synoptic-scale flow are summarized by five types: (i) pivoting cut-off lows, (ii) elongated cut-off lows, (iii) elongated troughs, (iv) waves (with a kink), and (v) approximately zonal flow over the Alpine region. We found that the most extreme floods (as above, but ≥ 98 th percentile) in Switzerland since 1868 were caused by the interaction of severe hydro-climatologic conditions with a flood-inducing weather situation. The 20CR data provide plausible synoptic-scale meteorological patterns leading to heavy precipitation. The proposed catalogue of weather patterns and hydro-climatologic precursors can give direction when anticipating the possibility of severe floods in the Alpine region. (orig.)

High-resolution regional climate model evaluation using variable-resolution CESM over California

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, X.; Rhoades, A.; Ullrich, P. A.; Zarzycki, C. M.

2015-12-01

Understanding the effect of climate change at regional scales remains a topic of intensive research. Though computational constraints remain a problem, high horizontal resolution is needed to represent topographic forcing, which is a significant driver of local climate variability. Although regional climate models (RCMs) have traditionally been used at these scales, variable-resolution global climate models (VRGCMs) have recently arisen as an alternative for studying regional weather and climate allowing two-way interaction between these domains without the need for nudging. In this study, the recently developed variable-resolution option within the Community Earth System Model (CESM) is assessed for long-term regional climate modeling over California. Our variable-resolution simulations will focus on relatively high resolutions for climate assessment, namely 28km and 14km regional resolution, which are much more typical for dynamically downscaled studies. For comparison with the more widely used RCM method, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model will be used for simulations at 27km and 9km. All simulations use the AMIP (Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project) protocols. The time period is from 1979-01-01 to 2005-12-31 (UTC), and year 1979 was discarded as spin up time. The mean climatology across California's diverse climate zones, including temperature and precipitation, is analyzed and contrasted with the Weather Research and Forcasting (WRF) model (as a traditional RCM), regional reanalysis, gridded observational datasets and uniform high-resolution CESM at 0.25 degree with the finite volume (FV) dynamical core. The results show that variable-resolution CESM is competitive in representing regional climatology on both annual and seasonal time scales. This assessment adds value to the use of VRGCMs for projecting climate change over the coming century and improve our understanding of both past and future regional climate related to fine

A 4-D Climatology (1979-2009) of the Monthly Tropospheric Aerosol Optical Depth Distribution over the Mediterranean Region from a Comparative Evaluation and Blending of Remote Sensing and Model Products

Science.gov (United States)

Nabat, P.; Somot, S.; Mallet, M.; Chiapello, I; Morcrette, J. J.; Solomon, F.; Szopa, S.; Dulac, F; Collins, W.; Ghan, S.;

Testing and documentation of programs used to transform climatological precipitation data to a geographically gridded format

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fox, T.D.

1979-01-01

A procedure was developed for converting climatological hourly precipitation data into a form suitable for input to regional atmospheric transport and removal models. The procedure involves a rearrangement of the original data by date rather than by station, followed by the use of a spatial averaging scheme to interpolate data from randomly spaced stations to a regularly spaced grid. The procedure has been tested and documented for general use

The use of normalized climatological anomalies to rank precipitation events in the Iberian Peninsula

Science.gov (United States)

Ramos, Alexandre M.; Trigo, Ricardo M.; Liberato, Margarida L. R.

2013-04-01

Peninsula but also most major river basins in the Iberian Peninsula (Minho, Douro, Tejo, Guadiana, Guadalquivir and Ebro). A selection of historical events will allow a quantitative evaluation both of the method and of the meteorological conditions in different regions of the Iberian Peninsula of the most anomalous events. This work was partially supported by FEDER (Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional) funds through the COMPETE (Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade) and by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal) through project STORMEx FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-019524 (PTDC/AAC-CLI/121339/2010). Belo-Pereira, M., E. Dutra, and P. Viterbo (2011) Evaluation of global precipitation data sets over the Iberian Peninsula, J. Geophys. Res., 116, D20101, doi:10.1029/2010JD015481. Herrera et. al. (2012) Development and Analysis of a 50 year high-resolution daily gridded precipitation dataset over Spain (Spain02) International Journal of Climatology 32:74-85 DOI: 10.1002/joc.2256.

Evaluating the Impact of Regional Marketing Projects on the Development of Regions from Different Stakeholder Perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kunze Kim-Kathrin

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In the competition for economically attractive stakeholders, regions have to implement strategies to gain and adhere those interest groups. Empirical studies concerning the migration motivations show that it is not only labor market but also soft locational factors of the social environment, nature and landscape that are of high importance: A majority of the population is willing to move or rather stay at a special place because of such soft locational factors. This study examines the impact of regional marketing projects on the development of regions from the perspectives of inhabitants and tourists as well as general attributes to measure a region’s attractiveness from the perspective of high potentials. We argue that those projects that fit to the region and its unique selling propositions contribute to positioning and building location brand value. We show that projects have a socio-economic effect on the attitude towards regions and contribute to building location brand value. An analysis of group differences shows that the project influence on the region and region attractiveness are perceived in significantly different manner depending on the knowledge level of the stakeholder group. Consequently, one should increase the awareness of marketing activities and regions and focus on soft locational factors while establishing and positioning a region brand.

Climatology of the northern hemisphere stratosphere derived from Berlin analyses. Pt. 1. Monthly means

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pawson, S.; Labitzke, K.; Lenschow, R.; Naujokat, B.; Rajewski, B.; Wiesner, M.; Wohlfart, R.C.

1993-01-01

This work presents a climatology of the northern hemisphere lower and middle stratosphere derived from daily radiosonde observations subjectively analysed in the Stratospheric Research Group of the 'Meteorologisches Institut der Freien Universitaet Berlin'. Previous climatologies from these data were presented by Labitzke (1972), van Loon et al. (1972), and by Labitzke and Goretzki (1982). Although some more recent climatological fields have been presented in several works by members of the group, no complete atlas has been compiled for some time. The work is intended to serve as a reference for people interested in the stratosphere and, particularly, the climate analysis and modelling communities, which require contemporary analyses of the available data in order to interpret their products. In this first part of the climatological atlas, monthly mean data are presented. (orig./KW)

Climatology of the northern hemisphere stratosphere derived from Berlin analyses. Pt. 1. Monthly means

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pawson, S; Labitzke, K; Lenschow, R; Naujokat, B; Rajewski, B; Wiesner, M; Wohlfart, R C

1933-01-01

This work presents a climatology of the northern hemisphere lower and middle stratosphere derived from daily radiosonde observations subjectively analysed in the Stratospheric Research Group of the 'Meteorologisches Institut der Freien Universitaet Berlin'. Previous climatologies from these data were presented by Labitzke (1972), van Loon et al. (1972), and by Labitzke and Goretzki (1982). Although some more recent climatological fields have been presented in several works by members of the group, no complete atlas has been compiled for some time. The work is intended to serve as a reference for people interested in the stratosphere and, particularly, the climate analysis and modelling communities, which require contemporary analyses of the available data in order to interpret their products. In this first part of the climatological atlas, monthly mean data are presented. (orig./KW)

Evaluation of uncertainties in regional climate change simulations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pan, Z.; Christensen, J. H.; Arritt, R. W.

2001-01-01

, an atmosphere-ocean coupled general circulation model (GCM) current climate, and a future scenario of transient climate change. Common precipitation climatology features simulated by both models included realistic orographic precipitation, east-west transcontinental gradients, and reasonable annual cycles over...... to different subgrid scale processes in individual models. The ratio of climate change to biases, which we use as one measure of confidence in projected climate changes, is substantially larger than 1 in several seasons and regions while the ratios are always less than 1 in summer. The largest ratios among all...... regions are in California. Spatial correlation coefficients of precipitation were computed between simulation pairs in the 2x3 set. The climate change correlation is highest and the RCM performance correlation is lowest while boundary forcing and intermodel correlations are intermediate. The high spatial...

Climatology of local flow patterns around Basel

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weber, R.O. [Paul Scherrer Inst. (PSI), Villigen (Switzerland)

1997-06-01

Recently a method has been developed to classify local-scale flow patterns from the wind measurements at a dense network of stations. It was found that in the MISTRAL area around Basel a dozen characteristic flow patterns occur. However, as the dense network of stations ran only during one year, no reliable climatology can be inferred from these data, especially the annual cycle of the flow patterns is not well determined from a single year of observations. As there exist several routinely operated stations in and near the MISTRAL area, a method was searched to identify the local flow patterns from the observations at the few routine stations. A linear discriminant analysis turned out to be the best method. Based of data from 11 stations which were simultaneously operated during 1990-1995 a six-year climatology of the flow patterns could be obtained. (author) 1 fig., 1 tab., 3 refs.

Diagnosing GCM errors over West Africa using relaxation experiments. Part I: summer monsoon climatology and interannual variability

Science.gov (United States)

Pohl, Benjamin; Douville, Hervé

2011-10-01

The CNRM atmospheric general circulation model Arpege-Climat is relaxed towards atmospheric reanalyses outside the 10°S-32°N 30°W-50°E domain in order to disentangle the regional versus large-scale sources of climatological biases and interannual variability of the West African monsoon (WAM). On the one hand, the main climatological features of the monsoon, including the spatial distribution of summer precipitation, are only weakly improved by the nudging, thereby suggesting the regional origin of the Arpege-Climat biases. On the other hand, the nudging technique is relatively efficient to control the interannual variability of the WAM dynamics, though the impact on rainfall variability is less clear. Additional sensitivity experiments focusing on the strong 1994 summer monsoon suggest that the weak sensitivity of the model biases is not an artifact of the nudging design, but the evidence that regional physical processes are the main limiting factors for a realistic simulation of monsoon circulation and precipitation in the Arpege-Climat model. Sensitivity experiments to soil moisture boundary conditions are also conducted and highlight the relevance of land-atmosphere coupling for the amplification of precipitation biases. Nevertheless, the land surface hydrology is not the main explanation for the model errors that are rather due to deficiencies in the atmospheric physics. The intraseasonal timescale and the model internal variability are discussed in a companion paper.

Diagnosing GCM errors over West Africa using relaxation experiments. Part I: summer monsoon climatology and interannual variability

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pohl, Benjamin [Meteo-France/CNRS, CNRM/GAME, Toulouse (France); CNRS/Universite de Bourgogne, Centre de Recherches de Climatologie, Dijon (France); Douville, Herve [Meteo-France/CNRS, CNRM/GAME, Toulouse (France)

2011-10-15

The CNRM atmospheric general circulation model Arpege-Climat is relaxed towards atmospheric reanalyses outside the 10 S-32 N 30 W-50 E domain in order to disentangle the regional versus large-scale sources of climatological biases and interannual variability of the West African monsoon (WAM). On the one hand, the main climatological features of the monsoon, including the spatial distribution of summer precipitation, are only weakly improved by the nudging, thereby suggesting the regional origin of the Arpege-Climat biases. On the other hand, the nudging technique is relatively efficient to control the interannual variability of the WAM dynamics, though the impact on rainfall variability is less clear. Additional sensitivity experiments focusing on the strong 1994 summer monsoon suggest that the weak sensitivity of the model biases is not an artifact of the nudging design, but the evidence that regional physical processes are the main limiting factors for a realistic simulation of monsoon circulation and precipitation in the Arpege-Climat model. Sensitivity experiments to soil moisture boundary conditions are also conducted and highlight the relevance of land-atmosphere coupling for the amplification of precipitation biases. Nevertheless, the land surface hydrology is not the main explanation for the model errors that are rather due to deficiencies in the atmospheric physics. The intraseasonal timescale and the model internal variability are discussed in a companion paper. (orig.)

Snow and Ice Climatology of the Western United States and Alaska from MODIS

Science.gov (United States)

Rittger, K. E.; Painter, T. H.; Mattmann, C. A.; Seidel, F. C.; Burgess, A.; Brodzik, M.

2013-12-01

The climate and hydroclimate of the Western US and Alaska are tightly coupled to their snow and ice cover. The Western US depends on mountain snowmelt for the majority of its water supply to agriculture, industrial and urban use, hydroelectric generation, and recreation, all driven by increasing population and demand. Alaskan snow and glacier cover modulate regional climate and, as with the Western US, dominate water supply and hydroelectric generation in much of the state. Projections of climate change in the Western US and Alaska suggest that the most pronounced impacts will include reductions of mountain snow and ice cover, earlier runoff, and a greater fraction of rain instead of snow. We establish a snow and ice climatology of the Western US and Alaska using physically based MODIS Snow Covered Area and Grain size model (MODSCAG) for fractional snow cover, the MODIS Dust Radiative Forcing in Snow model (MODDRFS) for radiative forcing by light absorbing impurities in snow, and the MODIS Permanent Ice model (MODICE) for annual minimum exposed snow. MODSCAG and MODDRFS use EOS MOD09GA historical reflectance data (2000-2012) to provide daily and 8-day composites and near real time products since the beginning of 2013, themselves ultimately composited to 8-day products. The compositing method considers sensor-viewing geometry, solar illumination, clouds, cloud shadows, aerosols and noisy detectors in order to select the best pixel for an 8-day period. The MODICE annual minimum exposed snow and ice product uses the daily time series of fractional snow and ice from MODSCAG to generate annual maps. With this project we have established an ongoing, national-scale, consistent and replicable approach to assessing current and projected climate impacts and climate-related risk in the context of other stressors. We analyze the products in the Northwest, Southwest, and Alaska/Arctic regions of the National Climate Assessment for the last decade, the nation's hottest on record

Situational Lightning Climatologies for Central Florida: Phase IV

Science.gov (United States)

Bauman, William H., III

2009-01-01

The threat of lightning is a daily concern during the warm season in Florida. Research has revealed distinct spatial and temporal distributions of lightning occurrence that are strongly influenced by large-scale atmospheric flow regimes. Previously, the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) calculated the gridded lightning climatologies based on seven flow regimes over Florida for 1-, 3- and 6-hr intervals in 5-, 10-,20-, and 30-NM diameter range rings around the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) and eight other airfields in the National Weather Service in Melbourne (NWS MLB) county warning area (CWA). In this update to the work, the AMU recalculated the lightning climatologies for using individual lightning strike data to improve the accuracy of the climatologies. The AMU included all data regardless of flow regime as one of the stratifications, added monthly stratifications, added three years of data to the period of record and used modified flow regimes based work from the AMU's Objective Lightning Probability Forecast Tool, Phase II. The AMU made changes so the 5- and 10-NM radius range rings are consistent with the aviation forecast requirements at NWS MLB, while the 20- and 30-NM radius range rings at the SLF assist the Spaceflight Meteorology Group in making forecasts for weather Flight Rule violations during Shuttle landings. The AMU also updated the graphical user interface with the new data.

Talking in Taejon : regional cooperative agreement project formulation meeting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McEwan, A. C.

1997-01-01

The International Atomic Energy Agency as part of its Regional Cooperative Agreement (RCA) with countries in east Asia and the neighboring Pacific, has had a project on strengthening radiation protection infrastructures operating for some years. This project has arranged training courses, workshops and other activities on a range of topics related to establishing or improving radiation protection measures and safety of radiation sources in member states of the region. A second 5 year phase of planned activities is to be concluded during 1997, and the value of the project is such that member coutntries proposed its continuation for a further 5 year period commencing in 1998. For this purpose a Task Group took the lead in assembling and evaluating proposals for consideration and approval at a meeting of national coordinators for the project held in Taejon Korea, 24-28 February. The RCA project for Phase III will be titled Enhancement and Harmonisation of Radiation Protection. The meeting of national coordinators from the region represents a unique opportunity for information sharing and cooperation in radiation protection betweem countries. (author)

Steps Toward an EOS-Era Aerosol Air Mass Type Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Kahn, Ralph A.

2012-01-01

We still have a way to go to develop a global climatology of aerosol type from the EOS-era satellite data record that currently spans more than 12 years of observations. We have demonstrated the ability to retrieve aerosol type regionally, providing a classification based on the combined constraints on particle size, shape, and single-scattering albedo (SSA) from the MISR instrument. Under good but not necessarily ideal conditions, the MISR data can distinguish three-to-five size bins, two-to-four bins in SSA, and spherical vs. non-spherical particles. However, retrieval sensitivity varies enormously with scene conditions. So, for example, there is less information about aerosol type when the mid-visible aerosol optical depth (AOD) is less that about 0.15 or 0.2.

Meteorology and climatology as parameters on low level waste disposal monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Culkowski, W.M.

1982-01-01

Once a site has been chosen for the burial of low level wastes, meteorological input is required in two forms, as climatology and as an estimator of airborne concentrations. The climatological data are fundamental to assessing hydrologic flow which may transport waste material from the original site. Airborne nuclear activity may occur by accidental release of material during the active burial phase or may result from gas formation in the trenches over a period of years

Hanford Site Climatological Summary 2004 with Historical Data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoitink, Dana J.; Ramsdell, James V.; Burk, Kenneth W.; Shaw, William J.

2005-01-01

This document presents the climatological data measured on the DOE Hanford Site for calendar year 2004. This report contains updated historical information for temperature, precipitation, wind, and normal and extreme values of temperature, and precipitation

A drought severity climatology for the Carpathian Region using Sc-PDSI

Science.gov (United States)

Antofie, Tiberiu; Naumann, Gustavo; Spinoni, Jonathan; Weynants, Melanie; Szalai, Sandor; Szentimrey, Tamas; Bihari, Zita; Vogt, Jürgen

2013-04-01

Monthly grids of the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (Sc-PDSI) have been calculated for the period 1961-2010 for the Carpathian Region (17˚-27˚E, 44˚-50˚N) with a spatial resolution of 0.1˚x 0.1˚. Using the Sc-PDSI and the assumptions of the Palmer Drought Model (PDM), the approximated precipitation required for drought termination (achieved when the Sc-PDSI turns back above -0.5) and amelioration (achieved when the Sc-PDSI value turns back above -2.0) are computed for periods of 1, 3, 6, and 9 months. The Sc-PDSI is based on a modified version of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), first introduced by Palmer (1965) with the intent to measure the cumulative departure (related to local normal conditions) of moisture supply and demand. Due to its empirically derived climatic characteristic (K) and duration factors - limited to U.S. climatic conditions - Wells et al. (2004) improved it and transformed the PDSI into the Sc-PDSI, which is more appropriate for spatial comparisons in different climatic regions. The Sc-PDSI is based on the supply-and-demand concept of a complex water budget system based on precipitation and temperature records and also on the soil characteristics at any location. The inputs used in this study are the Available Water Capacity of the soil (AWC) derived from the soil texture (European Soil Database of JRC) with a spatial resolution of 0.1˚x0.1˚, Potential Evapo-Transpiration (PET), and 6 hydrological parameters of the soil water balance: recharge, runoff, loss, and their potential values (used in the calculation of Palmer's constants to define the normal climate for the specific location, i.e. the so called CAFEC). PET has been computed using the 0.1˚x 0.1˚ gridded monthly precipitation and mean temperature for 1961-2010 provided by the CARPATCLIM project in the framework of the construction of a Climate Atlas for the Carpathian Region. The Sc-PDSI focuses on the monthly anomalies of the soil moisture, thus it

A global climatology for equatorial plasma bubbles in the topside ionosphere

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. C. Gentile

2006-03-01

Full Text Available We have developed a global climatology of equatorial plasma bubble (EPB occurrence based on evening sector plasma density measurements from polar-orbiting Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP spacecraft during 1989-2004. EPBs are irregular plasma density depletions in the post-sunset ionosphere that degrade communication and navigation signals. More than 14400 EPBs were identified in ~134000 DMSP orbits. DMSP observations basically agree with Tsunoda's (1985 hypothesis that EPB rates peak when the terminator is aligned with the Earth's magnetic field, but there are also unpredicted offsets in many longitude sectors. We present an updated climatology for the full database from 1989-2004 along with new plots for specific phases of the solar cycle: maximum 1989-1992 and 1999-2002, minimum 1994-1997, and transition years 1993, 1998, and 2003. As expected, there are significant differences between the climatologies for solar maximum and minimum and between the two solar maximum phases as well. We also compare DMSP F12, F14, F15, and F16 observations at slightly different local times during 2000-2004 to examine local time effects on EPB rates. The global climatologies developed using the DMSP EPB database provide an environmental context for the long-range prediction tools under development for the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS mission.

Tropospheric Ozonesonde Profiles at Long-term U.S. Monitoring Sites: 1. A Climatology Based on Self-Organizing Maps

Science.gov (United States)

Stauffer, Ryan M.; Thompson, Anne M.; Young, George S.

2016-01-01

Sonde-based climatologies of tropospheric ozone (O3) are vital for developing satellite retrieval algorithms and evaluating chemical transport model output. Typical O3 climatologies average measurements by latitude or region, and season. A recent analysis using self-organizing maps (SOM) to cluster ozonesondes from two tropical sites found that clusters of O3 mixing ratio profiles are an excellent way to capture O3variability and link meteorological influences to O3 profiles. Clusters correspond to distinct meteorological conditions, e.g., convection, subsidence, cloud cover, and transported pollution. Here the SOM technique is extended to four long-term U.S. sites (Boulder, CO; Huntsville, AL; Trinidad Head, CA; and Wallops Island, VA) with4530 total profiles. Sensitivity tests on k-means algorithm and SOM justify use of 3 3 SOM (nine clusters). Ateach site, SOM clusters together O3 profiles with similar tropopause height, 500 hPa height temperature, and amount of tropospheric and total column O3. Cluster means are compared to monthly O3 climatologies.For all four sites, near-tropopause O3 is double (over +100 parts per billion by volume; ppbv) the monthly climatological O3 mixing ratio in three clusters that contain 1316 of profiles, mostly in winter and spring.Large midtropospheric deviations from monthly means (6 ppbv, +710 ppbv O3 at 6 km) are found in two of the most populated clusters (combined 3639 of profiles). These two clusters contain distinctly polluted(summer) and clean O3 (fall-winter, high tropopause) profiles, respectively. As for tropical profiles previously analyzed with SOM, O3 averages are often poor representations of U.S. O3 profile statistics.

NASA GLDAS Evapotranspiration Data and Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Rui, Hualan; Beaudoing, Hiroko Kato; Teng, William L.; Vollmer, Bruce; Rodell, Matthew

2012-01-01

Evapotranspiration (ET) is the water lost to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration. ET is a shared component in the energy and water budget, therefore, a critical variable for global energy and water cycle and climate change studies. However, direct ET measurements and data acquisition are difficult and expensive, especially at the global level. Therefore, modeling is one common alternative for estimating ET. With the goal to generate optimal fields of land surface states and fluxes, the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) has been generating quality-controlled, spatially and temporally consistent, terrestrial hydrologic data, including ET and other variables that affect evaporation and transpiration, such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind, soil moisture, heat flux, and solar radiation. This poster presents the long-term ET climatology (mean and monthly), derived from the 61-year GLDAS-2 monthly 1.0 deg x 1.0 deg. NOAH model Experiment-1 data, and describes the basic characteristics of spatial and seasonal variations of the climatology. The time series of GLDAS-2 precipitation and radiation, and ET are also discussed to show the improvement of GLDAS-2 forcing data and model output over those from GLDAS-1.

Precipitation Climatology on Titan-like Exomoons.

Science.gov (United States)

Tokano, Tetsuya

2015-06-01

The availability of liquid water on the surface on Earth's continents in part relies on the precipitation of water. This implies that the habitability of exomoons has to consider not only the surface temperature and atmospheric pressure for the presence of liquid water, but also the global precipitation climatology. This study explores the sensitivity of the precipitation climatology of Titan-like exomoons to these moons' orbital configuration using a global climate model. The precipitation rate primarily depends on latitude and is sensitive to the planet's obliquity and the moon's rotation rate. On slowly rotating moons the precipitation shifts to higher latitudes as obliquity is increased, whereas on quickly rotating moons the latitudinal distribution does not strongly depend on obliquity. Stellar eclipse can cause a longitudinal variation in the mean surface temperature and surface pressure between the subplanetary and antiplanetary side if the planet's obliquity and the moon's orbital distance are small. In this particular condition the antiplanetary side generally receives more precipitation than the subplanetary side. However, precipitation on exomoons with dense atmospheres generally occurs at any longitude in contrast to tidally locked exoplanets.

A Seasonal Air Transport Climatology for Kenya

Science.gov (United States)

Gatebe, C. K.; Tyson, P. D.; Annegarn, H.; Piketh, S.; Helas, G.

1998-01-01

A climatology of air transport to and from Kenya has been developed using kinematic trajectory modeling. Significant months for trajectory analysis have been determined from a classification of synoptic circulation fields. Five-point back and forward trajectory clusters to and from Kenya reveal that the transport corridors to Kenya are clearly bounded and well defined. Air reaching the country originates mainly from the Saharan region and northwestern Indian Ocean of the Arabian Sea in the northern hemisphere and from the Madagascan region of the Indian Ocean in the southern hemisphere. Transport from each of these source regions show distinctive annual cycles related to the northeasterly Asian monsoon and the southeasterly trade wind maximum over Kenya in May. The Saharan transport in the lower troposphere is at a maximum when the subtropical high over northern Africa is strongly developed in the boreal winter. Air reaching Kenya between 700 and 500 hPa is mainly from Sahara and northwest India Ocean flows in the months of January and March, which gives way to southwest Indian Ocean flow in May and November. In contrast, air reaching Kenya at 400 hPa is mainly from southwest Indian Ocean in January and March, which is replaced by Saharan transport in May and November. Transport of air from Kenya is invariant, both spatially and temporally, in the tropical easterlies to the Congo Basin and Atlantic Ocean in comparison to the transport to the country. Recirculation of air has also been observed, but on a limited and often local scale and not to the extent reported in southern Africa.

Global Historical Climatology Network - Monthly (GHCN-M), Version 3

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Please note, GHCN-Monthly provides climatological observations for four elements; monthly mean maximum temperature, minimum temperature, mean temperature, and...

Kuroshio Pathways in a Climatologically-Forced Model

Science.gov (United States)

Douglass, E. M.; Jayne, S. R.; Bryan, F. O.; Peacock, S.; Maltrud, M. E.

2010-12-01

A high resolution ocean model forced with an annually repeating atmosphere is used to examine variability of the Kuroshio, the western boundary current in the North Pacific Ocean. A large meander in the path of the Kuroshio south of Japan develops and disappears in a highly bimodal fashion on decadal time scales. This meander is comparable in timing and spatial extent to an observed feature in the region. Various characteristics of the large meander are examined, including shear, transport and velocity. The many similarities between the model and observations indicate that the meander results from intrinsic oceanic variability, which is represented in this climatologically-forced model. Each large meander is preceded by a smaller "trigger" meander that originates at the southern end of Kyushu, moves up the coast, and develops into the large meander. However there are also many meanders very similar in character to the trigger meander that do not develop into large meanders. The mechanism that determines which trigger meanders develop into large meanders is as yet undetermined.

4.4 Development of a 30-Year Soil Moisture Climatology for Situational Awareness and Public Health Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Case, Jonathan L.; Zavodsky, Bradley T.; White, Kristopher D.; Bell, Jesse E.

2015-01-01

This paper provided a brief background on the work being done at NASA SPoRT and the CDC to create a soil moisture climatology over the CONUS at high spatial resolution, and to provide a valuable source of soil moisture information to the CDC for monitoring conditions that could favor the development of Valley Fever. The soil moisture climatology has multi-faceted applications for both the NOAA/NWS situational awareness in the areas of drought and flooding, and for the Public Health community. SPoRT plans to increase its interaction with the drought monitoring and Public Health communities by enhancing this testbed soil moisture anomaly product. This soil moisture climatology run will also serve as a foundation for upgrading the real-time (currently southeastern CONUS) SPoRT-LIS to a full CONUS domain based on LIS version 7 and incorporating real-time GVF data from the Suomi-NPP Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (Vargas et al. 2013) into LIS-Noah. The upgraded SPoRT-LIS run will serve as a testbed proof-of-concept of a higher-resolution NLDAS-2 modeling member. The climatology run will be extended to near real-time using the NLDAS-2 meteorological forcing from 2011 to present. The fixed 1981-2010 climatology shall provide the soil moisture "normals" for the production of real-time soil moisture anomalies. SPoRT also envisions a web-mapping type of service in which an end-user could put in a request for either an historical or real-time soil moisture anomaly graph for a specified county (as exemplified by Figure 2) and/or for local and regional maps of soil moisture proxy percentiles. Finally, SPoRT seeks to assimilate satellite soil moisture data from the current Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS; Blankenship et al. 2014) and the recently-launched NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP; Entekhabi et al. 2010) missions, using the EnKF capability within LIS. The 9-km combined active radar and passive microwave retrieval product from SMAP (Das et al. 2011

Climatology of surface ultraviolet-radiation in Valparaiso, Chile

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cordero, Raul R.; Roth, Pedro; Georgiev, Aleksandar; Silva, Luis da

2005-01-01

Despite the lack of long-term records, it is possible to describe many of the short term characteristics, dependencies and climatology of surface UV irradiance. This paper describes the climatology of on ground UV irradiance at Valparaiso (33.05 deg. S, 71.63 deg. W, sea level), Chile. The dependence of UV-B irradiance on ozone and on other climate variables is discussed with reference to our observations conducted during the last four years. Special attention was paid to detect 'ozone events' by surface UV irradiance measurements. By analyzing time series of the UV-B/UV-A ratio, we suppressed the cloud variability effect and detected events that implied ozone column changes of about 15%. According to our measurements, during the last four years, the ozone column over Valparaiso was not affected negatively by the Antarctic ozone hole phenomenon

Inflated Uncertainty in Multimodel-Based Regional Climate Projections

Science.gov (United States)

Madsen, Marianne Sloth; Langen, Peter L.; Boberg, Fredrik; Christensen, Jens Hesselbjerg

2017-11-01

Multimodel ensembles are widely analyzed to estimate the range of future regional climate change projections. For an ensemble of climate models, the result is often portrayed by showing maps of the geographical distribution of the multimodel mean results and associated uncertainties represented by model spread at the grid point scale. Here we use a set of CMIP5 models to show that presenting statistics this way results in an overestimation of the projected range leading to physically implausible patterns of change on global but also on regional scales. We point out that similar inconsistencies occur in impact analyses relying on multimodel information extracted using statistics at the regional scale, for example, when a subset of CMIP models is selected to represent regional model spread. Consequently, the risk of unwanted impacts may be overestimated at larger scales as climate change impacts will never be realized as the worst (or best) case everywhere.

Global Historical Climatology Network - Daily (GHCN-Daily), Version 3

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Global Historical Climatology Network - Daily (GHCN-Daily) dataset integrates daily climate observations from approximately 30 different data sources. Version 3...

Climatology and classification of spring Saharan cyclone tracks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hannachi, A. [Reading University, Department of Meteorology, PO Box 243, Reading (United Kingdom); Awad, A. [King Abdulaziz University, Department of Meteorology, Jeddah (Saudi Arabia); Ammar, K. [Meteorological Authority, Department of Research, Cairo (Egypt)

2011-08-15

Spring Saharan cyclones constitute a dominant feature of the not-well-explored Saharan region. In this manuscript, a climatological analysis and classification of Saharan cyclone tracks are presented using 6-hourly NCEP/NCAR sea level pressure (SLP) reanalyses over the Sahara (10 W-50 E, 20 N-50 N) for the Spring (March-April-May) season over the period 1958-2006. A simple tracking procedure based on following SLP minima is used to construct around 640 Spring Saharan cyclone tracks. Saharan cyclones are found to be short-lived compared to their extratropical counterparts with an e-folding time of about 3 days. The lee side of the west Atlas mountain is found to be the main cyclogenetic region for Spring Saharan cyclones. Central Iraq is identified as the main cyclolytic area. A subjective procedure is used next to classify the cyclone tracks where six clusters are identified. Among these clusters the Western Atlas-Asia Minor is the largest and most stretched, whereas Algerian Sahara-Asia Minor is composed of the most long-lived tracks. Upper level flow associated with the tracks has also been examined and the role of large scale baroclinicity in the growth of Saharan cyclones is discussed. (orig.)

Impact of mining projects on the socio-economics of the region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rao, K.R.; Yerpude, R.R.

1994-01-01

Mining of mineral deposits, if exploited economically, would generate prospects of significant employment of non-inflationary nature, in developing countries. Exploitation of remotely located mineral deposits contributes in developing inaccessible regions thereby improving socio-economics of the region benefiting the local inhabitants and supplementing the efforts towards national integration. However, an indifferent attitude of the project management towards environment and welfare of local population will result in clash of interests and perpetual litigations which not only impede progress of the project but also lead to law and order problems. A precondition for successful implementation of any project is to understand the possible impact it has, on the socio-economics of the region and educate the local inhabitants to derive optimum advantage from the project. In this paper, two cases of mining projects, one located remotely and the other close to a well developed city are studied and their impact on the socio-economics of the respective regions is presented. 5 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab

Estonian total ozone climatology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Eerme

Full Text Available The climatological characteristics of total ozone over Estonia based on the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS data are discussed. The mean annual cycle during 1979–2000 for the site at 58.3° N and 26.5° E is compiled. The available ground-level data interpolated before TOMS, have been used for trend detection. During the last two decades, the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO corrected systematic decrease of total ozone from February–April was 3 ± 2.6% per decade. Before 1980, a spring decrease was not detectable. No decreasing trend was found in either the late autumn ozone minimum or in the summer total ozone. The QBO related signal in the spring total ozone has an amplitude of ± 20 DU and phase lag of 20 months. Between 1987–1992, the lagged covariance between the Singapore wind and the studied total ozone was weak. The spring (April–May and summer (June–August total ozone have the best correlation (coefficient 0.7 in the yearly cycle. The correlation between the May and August total ozone is higher than the one between the other summer months. Seasonal power spectra of the total ozone variance show preferred periods with an over 95% significance level. Since 1986, during the winter/spring, the contribution period of 32 days prevails instead of the earlier dominating 26 days. The spectral densities of the periods from 4 days to 2 weeks exhibit high interannual variability.

Key words. Atmospheric composition and structure (middle atmosphere – composition and chemistry; volcanic effects – Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (climatology

Present, future, and novel bioclimates of the San Francisco, California region

Science.gov (United States)

Torregrosa, Alicia; Taylor, Maxwell D.; Flint, Lorraine E.; Flint, Alan L.

2013-01-01

Bioclimates are syntheses of climatic variables into biologically relevant categories that facilitate comparative studies of biotic responses to climate conditions. Isobioclimates, unique combinations of bioclimatic indices (continentality, ombrotype, and thermotype), were constructed for northern California coastal ranges based on the Rivas-Martinez worldwide bioclimatic classification system for the end of the 20th century climatology (1971–2000) and end of the 21st century climatology (2070–2099) using two models, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) model and the Parallel Climate Model (PCM), under the medium-high A2 emission scenario. The digitally mapped results were used to 1) assess the relative redistribution of isobioclimates and their magnitude of change, 2) quantify the loss of isobioclimates into the future, 3) identify and locate novel isobioclimates projected to appear, and 4) explore compositional change in vegetation types among analog isobioclimate patches. This study used downscaled climate variables to map the isobioclimates at a fine spatial resolution −270 m grid cells. Common to both models of future climate was a large change in thermotype. Changes in ombrotype differed among the two models. The end of 20th century climatology has 83 isobioclimates covering the 63,000 km2 study area. In both future projections 51 of those isobioclimates disappear over 40,000 km2. The ordination of vegetation-bioclimate relationships shows very strong correlation of Rivas-Martinez indices with vegetation distribution and composition. Comparisons of vegetation composition among analog patches suggest that vegetation change will be a local rearrangement of species already in place rather than one requiring long distance dispersal. The digitally mapped results facilitate comparison with other Mediterranean regions. Major remaining challenges include predicting vegetation composition of novel isobioclimates and developing metrics to compare

Present, future, and novel bioclimates of the San Francisco, California region.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alicia Torregrosa

Full Text Available Bioclimates are syntheses of climatic variables into biologically relevant categories that facilitate comparative studies of biotic responses to climate conditions. Isobioclimates, unique combinations of bioclimatic indices (continentality, ombrotype, and thermotype, were constructed for northern California coastal ranges based on the Rivas-Martinez worldwide bioclimatic classification system for the end of the 20(th century climatology (1971-2000 and end of the 21(st century climatology (2070-2099 using two models, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL model and the Parallel Climate Model (PCM, under the medium-high A2 emission scenario. The digitally mapped results were used to 1 assess the relative redistribution of isobioclimates and their magnitude of change, 2 quantify the loss of isobioclimates into the future, 3 identify and locate novel isobioclimates projected to appear, and 4 explore compositional change in vegetation types among analog isobioclimate patches. This study used downscaled climate variables to map the isobioclimates at a fine spatial resolution -270 m grid cells. Common to both models of future climate was a large change in thermotype. Changes in ombrotype differed among the two models. The end of 20(th century climatology has 83 isobioclimates covering the 63,000 km(2 study area. In both future projections 51 of those isobioclimates disappear over 40,000 km(2. The ordination of vegetation-bioclimate relationships shows very strong correlation of Rivas-Martinez indices with vegetation distribution and composition. Comparisons of vegetation composition among analog patches suggest that vegetation change will be a local rearrangement of species already in place rather than one requiring long distance dispersal. The digitally mapped results facilitate comparison with other Mediterranean regions. Major remaining challenges include predicting vegetation composition of novel isobioclimates and developing metrics to

Comparison of five gridded precipitation products at climatological scales over West Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Akinsanola, A. A.; Ogunjobi, K. O.; Ajayi, V. O.; Adefisan, E. A.; Omotosho, J. A.; Sanogo, S.

2017-12-01

The paper aimed at assessing the capabilities and limitations of five different precipitation products to describe rainfall over West Africa. Five gridded precipitation datasets of the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Multi-Platform Analysis (TMPA 3B43v7); University of Delaware (UDEL version 3.01); Climatic Research Unit (CRU version 3.1); Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC version 7) and African Rainfall Climatology (ARC version 2) were compared and validated with reference ground observation data from 81 stations spanning a 19-year period, from January 1990 to December 2008. Spatial investigation of the precipitation datasets was performed, and their capability to replicate the inter-annual and intra-seasonal variability was also assessed. The ability of the products to capture the El Nino and La Nina events were also assessed. Results show that all the five datasets depicted similar spatial distribution of mean rainfall climatology, although differences exist in the total rainfall amount for each precipitation dataset. Further analysis shows that the three distinct phases of the mean annual cycle of the West Africa Monsoon precipitation were well captured by the datasets. However, CRU, GPCC and UDEL failed to capture the little dry season in the month of August while UDEL and GPCC underestimated rainfall amount in the Sahel region. Results of the inter-annual precipitation anomalies shows that ARC2 fail to capture about 46% of the observed variability while the other four datasets exhibits a greater performance ( r > 0.9). All the precipitation dataset except ARC2 were consistent with the ground observation in capturing the dry and wet conditions associated with El Nino and La Nina events, respectively. ARC2 tends to overestimate the El Nino event and failed to capture the La Nina event in all the years considered. In general GPCC, CRU and TRMM were found to be the most outstanding datasets and can, therefore, be used for precipitation

High-resolution precipitation database for the last two centuries in Italy: climatologies and anomalies

Science.gov (United States)

Crespi, Alice; Brunetti, Michele; Maugeri, Maurizio

2017-04-01

The availability of gridded high-resolution spatial climatologies and corresponding secular records has acquired an increasing importance in the recent years both to research purposes and as decision-support tools in the management of natural resources and economical activities. High-resolution monthly precipitation climatologies for Italy were computed by gridding on a 30-arc-second-resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) the precipitation normals (1961-1990) obtained from a quality-controlled dataset of about 6200 stations covering the Italian surface and part of the Northern neighbouring regions. Starting from the assumption that the precipitation distribution is strongly influenced by orography, especially elevation, a local weighted linear regression (LWLR) of precipitation versus elevation was performed at each DEM cell. The regression coefficients for each cell were estimated by selecting the stations with the highest weights in which the distances and the level of similarity between the station cells and the considered grid cell, in terms of orographic features, are taken into account. An optimisation procedure was then set up in order to define, for each month and for each grid cell, the most suitable decreasing coefficients for the weighting factors which enter in the LWLR scheme. The model was validated by the comparison with the results provided by inverse distance weighting (IDW) applied both to station normals and to the residuals of a global regression of station normals versus elevation. In both cases, the LWLR leave-one-out reconstructions show the best agreement with the observed station normals, especially when considering specific station clusters (high elevation sites for example). After producing the high-resolution precipitation climatological field, the temporal component on the high-resolution grid was obtained by following the anomaly method. It is based on the assumption that the spatio-temporal structure of the signal of a

A climatology of visible surface reflectance spectra

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zoogman, Peter; Liu, Xiong; Chance, Kelly; Sun, Qingsong; Schaaf, Crystal; Mahr, Tobias; Wagner, Thomas

2016-01-01

We present a high spectral resolution climatology of visible surface reflectance as a function of wavelength for use in satellite measurements of ozone and other atmospheric species. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument is planned to measure backscattered solar radiation in the 290–740 nm range, including the ultraviolet and visible Chappuis ozone bands. Observation in the weak Chappuis band takes advantage of the relative transparency of the atmosphere in the visible to achieve sensitivity to near-surface ozone. However, due to the weakness of the ozone absorption features this measurement is more sensitive to errors in visible surface reflectance, which is highly variable. We utilize reflectance measurements of individual plant, man-made, and other surface types to calculate the primary modes of variability of visible surface reflectance at a high spectral resolution, comparable to that of TEMPO (0.6 nm). Using the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Bidirection Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)/albedo product and our derived primary modes we construct a high spatial resolution climatology of wavelength-dependent surface reflectance over all viewing scenes and geometries. The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment–2 (GOME-2) Lambertian Equivalent Reflectance (LER) product provides complementary information over water and snow scenes. Preliminary results using this approach in multispectral ultraviolet+visible ozone retrievals from the GOME-2 instrument show significant improvement to the fitting residuals over vegetated scenes. - Highlights: • Our goals was visible surface reflectance for satellite trace gas measurements. • Captured the range of surface reflectance spectra through EOF analysis. • Used satellite surface reflectance products for each given scene to anchor EOFs. • Generated a climatology of time/geometry dependent surface reflectance spectra. • Demonstrated potential to

Regional projection of climate impact indices over the Mediterranean region

Science.gov (United States)

Casanueva, Ana; Frías, M.; Dolores; Herrera, Sixto; Bedia, Joaquín; San Martín, Daniel; Gutiérrez, José Manuel; Zaninovic, Ksenija

2014-05-01

Climate Impact Indices (CIIs) are being increasingly used in different socioeconomic sectors to transfer information about climate change impacts and risks to stakeholders. CIIs are typically based on different weather variables such as temperature, wind speed, precipitation or humidity and comprise, in a single index, the relevant meteorological information for the particular impact sector (in this study wildfires and tourism). This dependence on several climate variables poses important limitations to the application of statistical downscaling techniques, since physical consistency among variables is required in most cases to obtain reliable local projections. The present study assesses the suitability of the "direct" downscaling approach, in which the downscaling method is directly applied to the CII. In particular, for illustrative purposes, we consider two popular indices used in the wildfire and tourism sectors, the Fire Weather Index (FWI) and the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET), respectively. As an example, two case studies are analysed over two representative Mediterranean regions of interest for the EU CLIM-RUN project: continental Spain for the FWI and Croatia for the PET. Results obtained with this "direct" downscaling approach are similar to those found from the application of the statistical downscaling to the individual meteorological drivers prior to the index calculation ("component" downscaling) thus, a wider range of statistical downscaling methods could be used. As an illustration, future changes in both indices are projected by applying two direct statistical downscaling methods, analogs and linear regression, to the ECHAM5 model. Larger differences were found between the two direct statistical downscaling approaches than between the direct and the component approaches with a single downscaling method. While these examples focus on particular indices and Mediterranean regions of interest for CLIM-RUN stakeholders, the same study

Simulated CONUS Flash Flood Climatologies from Distributed Hydrologic Models

Science.gov (United States)

Flamig, Z.; Gourley, J. J.; Vergara, H. J.; Kirstetter, P. E.; Hong, Y.

2016-12-01

This study will describe a CONUS flash flood climatology created over the period from 2002 through 2011. The MRMS reanalysis precipitation dataset was used as forcing into the Ensemble Framework For Flash Flood Forecasting (EF5). This high resolution 1-sq km 5-minute dataset is ideal for simulating flash floods with a distributed hydrologic model. EF5 features multiple water balance components including SAC-SMA, CREST, and a hydrophobic model all coupled with kinematic wave routing. The EF5/SAC-SMA and EF5/CREST water balance schemes were used for the creation of dual flash flood climatologies based on the differing water balance principles. For the period from 2002 through 2011 the daily maximum streamflow, unit streamflow, and time of peak streamflow was stored along with the minimum soil moisture. These variables are used to describe the states of the soils right before a flash flood event and the peak streamflow that was simulated during the flash flood event. The results will be shown, compared and contrasted. The resulting model simulations will be verified on basins less than 1,000-sq km with USGS gauges to ensure the distributed hydrologic models are reliable. The results will also be compared spatially to Storm Data flash flood event observations to judge the degree of agreement between the simulated climatologies and observations.

A 4-D climatology (1979–2009 of the monthly tropospheric aerosol optical depth distribution over the Mediterranean region from a comparative evaluation and blending of remote sensing and model products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P. Nabat

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Since the 1980s several spaceborne sensors have been used to retrieve the aerosol optical depth (AOD over the Mediterranean region. In parallel, AOD climatologies coming from different numerical model simulations are now also available, permitting to distinguish the contribution of several aerosol types to the total AOD. In this work, we perform a comparative analysis of this unique multi-year database in terms of total AOD and of its apportionment by the five main aerosol types (soil dust, sea-salt, sulfate, black and organic carbon. We use 9 different satellite-derived monthly AOD products: NOAA/AVHRR, SeaWiFS (2 products, TERRA/MISR, TERRA/MODIS, AQUA/MODIS, ENVISAT/MERIS, PARASOL/POLDER and MSG/SEVIRI, as well as 3 more historical datasets: NIMBUS7/CZCS, TOMS (onboard NIMBUS7 and Earth-Probe and METEOSAT/MVIRI. Monthly model datasets include the aerosol climatology from Tegen et al. (1997, the climate-chemistry models LMDz-OR-INCA and RegCM-4, the multi-model mean coming from the ACCMIP exercise, and the reanalyses GEMS and MACC. Ground-based Level-2 AERONET AOD observations from 47 stations around the basin are used here to evaluate the model and satellite data. The sensor MODIS (on AQUA and TERRA has the best average AOD scores over this region, showing a relevant spatio-temporal variability and highlighting high dust loads over Northern Africa and the sea (spring and summer, and sulfate aerosols over continental Europe (summer. The comparison also shows limitations of certain datasets (especially MERIS and SeaWiFS standard products. Models reproduce the main patterns of the AOD variability over the basin. The MACC reanalysis is the closest to AERONET data, but appears to underestimate dust over Northern Africa, where RegCM-4 is found closer to MODIS thanks to its interactive scheme for dust emissions. The vertical dimension is also investigated using the CALIOP instrument. This study confirms differences of vertical distribution between

Comparative glacio-climatological analysis of mass balance variability along the geographical margin of Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Lehoczky, Annamária; Kern, Zoltán; Pongrácz, Rita

2014-05-01

Glacio-climatological studies recognise glacier mass balance changes as high-confident climate indicators. The climatic sensitivity of a glacier does not simply depend on regional climate variability but also influenced via large- and mesoscale atmospheric circulation patterns. This study focuses on recent changes in the mass balance using records from three border regions of Europe, and investigates the relationships between the seasonal mass balance components, regional climatic conditions, and distant atmospheric forcing. Since glaciers in different macro-climatological conditions (i.e., mid-latitudes or high-latitudes, dry-continental or maritime regions) may present strongly diverse mass balance characteristics, the three analysed regions were selected from different glacierised macroregions (using the database of the World Glacier Monitoring Service). These regions belong to the Caucasus Mountains (Central Europe macroregion), the Polar Ural (Northern Asia macroregion), and Svalbard (Arctic Islands macroregion). The analysis focuses on winter, summer, and annual mass balance series of eight glaciers. The climatic variables (atmospheric pressure, air temperature, precipitation) and indices of teleconnection patterns (e.g., North Atlantic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation) are used from the gridded databases of the University of East Anglia, Climatic Research Unit and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Center for Environmental Prediction. However, the period and length of available mass balance data in the selected regions vary greatly (the first full record is in 1958, Polar Ural; the last is in 2010, Caucasus Mountains), a comparative analysis can be carried out for the period of 1968-1981. Since glaciers from different regions respond to large- and mesoscale climatic forcings differently, and because the mass balance of glaciers within a region often co-vary, our specific objectives are (i) to examine the variability and the

Alpine cloud climatology using long-term NOAA-AVHRR satellite data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kaestner, M.; Kriebel, K.T.

2000-07-01

Three different climates have been identified by our evaluation of AVHRR (advanced very high resolution radiometer) data using APOLLO (AVHRR processing scheme over land, clouds and ocean) for a five-years cloud climatology of the Alpine region. The cloud cover data from four layers were spatially averaged in boxes of 15 km by 14 km. The study area only comprises 540 km by 560 km, but contains regions with moderate, Alpine and Mediterranean climate. Data from the period July 1989 until December 1996 have been considered. The temporal resolution is one scene per day, the early afternoon pass, yielding monthly means of satellite derived cloud coverages 5% to 10% above the daily mean compared to conventional surface observation. At nonvegetated sites the cloudiness is sometimes significantly overestimated. Averaging high resolution cloud data seems to be superior to low resolution measurements of cloud properties and averaging is favourable in topographical homogeneous regions only. The annual course of cloud cover reveals typical regional features as foehn or temporal singularities as the so-called Christmas thaw. The cloud cover maps in spatially high resolution show local luff/lee features which outline the orography. Less cloud cover is found over the Alps than over the forelands in winter, an accumulation of thick cirrus is found over the High Alps and an accumulation of thin cirrus north of the Alps. (orig.)

Global sea-to-air flux climatology for bromoform, dibromomethane and methyl iodide

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. Ziska

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Volatile halogenated organic compounds containing bromine and iodine, which are naturally produced in the ocean, are involved in ozone depletion in both the troposphere and stratosphere. Three prominent compounds transporting large amounts of marine halogens into the atmosphere are bromoform (CHBr3, dibromomethane (CH2Br2 and methyl iodide (CH3I. The input of marine halogens to the stratosphere has been estimated from observations and modelling studies using low-resolution oceanic emission scenarios derived from top-down approaches. In order to improve emission inventory estimates, we calculate data-based high resolution global sea-to-air flux estimates of these compounds from surface observations within the HalOcAt (Halocarbons in the Ocean and Atmosphere database (https://halocat.geomar.de/. Global maps of marine and atmospheric surface concentrations are derived from the data which are divided into coastal, shelf and open ocean regions. Considering physical and biogeochemical characteristics of ocean and atmosphere, the open ocean water and atmosphere data are classified into 21 regions. The available data are interpolated onto a 1°×1° grid while missing grid values are interpolated with latitudinal and longitudinal dependent regression techniques reflecting the compounds' distributions. With the generated surface concentration climatologies for the ocean and atmosphere, global sea-to-air concentration gradients and sea-to-air fluxes are calculated. Based on these calculations we estimate a total global flux of 1.5/2.5 Gmol Br yr−1 for CHBr3, 0.78/0.98 Gmol Br yr−1 for CH2Br2 and 1.24/1.45 Gmol Br yr−1 for CH3I (robust fit/ordinary least squares regression techniques. Contrary to recent studies, negative fluxes occur in each sea-to-air flux climatology, mainly in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. "Hot spots" for global polybromomethane emissions are located in the equatorial region, whereas methyl iodide emissions are enhanced in the

Recycling and composting demonstration projects for the Memphis region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Muller, D. [Memphis and Shelby County Div. of Planning and Development, TN (United States)

1992-05-01

This report documents the development and implementation of the project entitled ``Recycling and Composting Demonstration Projects for the Memphis Region.`` The project was funded by the Energy Task Force of the Urban Consortium for Technology Initiatives. This Project was implemented by the staff of the Special Programs Section of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development. The project began November 1, 1990, and was completed December 31, 1991. The purpose of the project was to evaluate the feasibility of a variety of solid waste disposal alternatives.

Recycling and composting demonstration projects for the Memphis region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Muller, D. (Memphis and Shelby County Div. of Planning and Development, TN (United States))

1992-05-01

This report documents the development and implementation of the project entitled Recycling and Composting Demonstration Projects for the Memphis Region.'' The project was funded by the Energy Task Force of the Urban Consortium for Technology Initiatives. This Project was implemented by the staff of the Special Programs Section of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development. The project began November 1, 1990, and was completed December 31, 1991. The purpose of the project was to evaluate the feasibility of a variety of solid waste disposal alternatives.

Sensitive study of the climatological SST by using ATSR global SST data sets

Science.gov (United States)

Xue, Yong; Lawrence, Sean P.; Llewellyn-Jones, David T.

1995-12-01

Climatological sea surface temperature (SST) is an initial step for global climate processing monitoring. A comparison has been made by using Oberhuber's SST data set and two years monthly averaged SST from ATSR thermal band data to force the OGCM. In the eastern Pacific Ocean, these make only a small difference to model SST. In the western Pacific Ocean, the use of Oberhuber's data set gives higher climatological SST than that using ATSR data. The SSTs were also simulated for 1992 using climatological SSTs from two years monthly averaged ATSR data and Oberhuber data. The forcing with SST from ATSR data was found to give better SST simulation than that from Oberhuber's data. Our study has confirmed that ATSR can provide accurate monthly averaged global SST for global climate processing monitoring.

Los Alamos Climatology 2016 Update

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bruggeman, David Alan [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2017-02-10

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL or the Laboratory) operates a meteorology monitoring network to support LANL emergency response, engineering designs, environmental compliance, environmental assessments, safety evaluations, weather forecasting, environmental monitoring, research programs, and environmental restoration. Weather data has been collected in Los Alamos since 1910. Bowen (1990) provided climate statistics (temperature and precipitation) for the 1961– 1990 averaging period, and included other analyses (e.g., wind and relative humidity) based on the available station locations and time periods. This report provides an update to the 1990 publication Los Alamos Climatology (Bowen 1990).

A satellite and model based flood inundation climatology of Australia

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, G.; Andreadis, K.; Castillo, C. J.

2013-12-01

To date there is no coherent and consistent database on observed or simulated flood event inundation and magnitude at large scales (continental to global). The only compiled data set showing a consistent history of flood inundation area and extent at a near global scale is provided by the MODIS-based Dartmouth Flood Observatory. However, MODIS satellite imagery is only available from 2000 and is hampered by a number of issues associated with flood mapping using optical images (e.g. classification algorithms, cloud cover, vegetation). Here, we present for the first time a proof-of-concept study in which we employ a computationally efficient 2-D hydrodynamic model (LISFLOOD-FP) complemented with a sub-grid channel formulation to generate a complete flood inundation climatology of the past 40 years (1973-2012) for the entire Australian continent. The model was built completely from freely available SRTM-derived data, including channel widths, bank heights and floodplain topography, which was corrected for vegetation canopy height using a global ICESat canopy dataset. Channel hydraulics were resolved using actual channel data and bathymetry was estimated within the model using hydraulic geometry. On the floodplain, the model simulated the flow paths and inundation variables at a 1 km resolution. The developed model was run over a period of 40 years and a floodplain inundation climatology was generated and compared to satellite flood event observations. Our proof-of-concept study demonstrates that this type of model can reliably simulate past flood events with reasonable accuracies both in time and space. The Australian model was forced with both observed flow climatology and VIC-simulated flows in order to assess the feasibility of a model-based flood inundation climatology at the global scale.

Climatological background for the utilization of energy from the sun

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alterio, S.; Barabaro, S.; Coppolino, S.

1983-01-01

Information on the main climatological factors characterizing a given place or area is fundamental for the utilization of energy from the Sun and for other applications. This paper collects and analyses the daily, monthly and yearly average climatic data (insolation, sunshine, state of the sky, air temperature and relative humidity) provided by sixty thermopluviometric stations variously distributed in the territory of Sicily. The analysis is here performed both with a purely applicative view and in order to point out the connection between climate and physical environment. It leads to a better knowledge of solar climate and constitutes the basis for equally interesting further developments in the various fields of applied climatology: geomorfology, agriculture, biology, ecology, bioclimatology, etc

Development and evaluation of climatologically-downscaled AFWA AGRMET precipitation products over the continental U.S.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, M.; Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Eylander, J. B.; Daly, C.; Gibson, W.; Tian, Y.; Zeng, J.; Kato, H.

2008-05-01

Collaborations between the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), the Hydrological Sciences Branch at NASA-GSFC, and the PRISM Group at Oregon State University have led to improvements in the processing of meteorological forcing inputs for the NASA-GSFC Land Information System (LIS; Kumar et al. 2006), a sophisticated framework for LSM operation and model coupling experiments. Efforts at AFWA toward the production of surface hydrometeorological products are currently in transition from the legacy Agricultural Meteorology modeling system (AGRMET) to use of the LIS framework and procedures. Recent enhancements to meteorological input processing for application to land surface models in LIS include the assimilation of climate-based information for the spatial interpolation and downscaling of precipitation fields. Climatological information included in the LIS- based downscaling procedure for North America is provided by a monthly high-resolution PRISM (Daly et al. 1994, 2002; Daly 2006) dataset based on a 30-year analysis period. The combination of these sources and methods attempts to address the strengths and weaknesses of available legacy products, objective interpolation methods, and the PRISM knowledge-based methodology. All of these efforts are oriented on an operational need for timely estimation of spatial precipitation fields at adequate spatial resolution for customer dissemination and near-real-time simulations in regions of interest. This work focuses on value added to the AGRMET precipitation product by the inclusion of high-quality climatological information on a monthly time scale. The AGRMET method uses microwave-based satellite precipitation estimates from various polar-orbiting platforms (NOAA POES and DMSP), infrared-based estimates from geostationary platforms (GOES, METEOSAT, etc.), related cloud analysis products, and surface gauge observations in a complex and hierarchical blending process. Results from processing of the legacy AGRMET precipitation

Machine-readable files developed for the High Plains Regional Aquifer-System analysis in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming

Science.gov (United States)

Ferrigno, C.F.

1986-01-01

Machine-readable files were developed for the High Plains Regional Aquifer-System Analysis project are stored on two magnetic tapes available from the U.S. Geological Survey. The first tape contains computer programs that were used to prepare, store, retrieve, organize, and preserve the areal interpretive data collected by the project staff. The second tape contains 134 data files that can be divided into five general classes: (1) Aquifer geometry data, (2) aquifer and water characteristics , (3) water levels, (4) climatological data, and (5) land use and water use data. (Author 's abstract)

Cloud microphysical characteristics versus temperature for three Canadian field projects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I. Gultepe

2002-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to better understand how cloud microphysical characteristics such as liquid water content (LWC and droplet number concentration (Nd change with temperature (T. The in situ observations were collected during three research projects including: the Radiation, Aerosol, and Cloud Experiment (RACE which took place over the Bay of Fundy and Central Ontario during August 1995, the First International Regional Arctic Cloud Experiment (FIRE.ACE which took place in the Arctic Ocean during April 1998, and the Alliance Icing Research Study (AIRS which took place in the Ontario region during the winter of 1999–2000. The RACE, FIRE.ACE, and AIRS projects represent summer mid-latitude clouds, Arctic clouds, and mid-latitude winter clouds, respectively. A LWC threshold of 0.005 g m-3 was used for this study. Similar to other studies, LWC was observed to decrease with decreasing T. The LWC-T relationship was similar for all projects, although the range of T conditions for each project was substantially different, and the variability of LWC within each project was considerable. Nd also decreased with decreasing T, and a parameterization for Nd versus T is suggested that may be useful for modeling studies.Key words. Atmospheric composition and structure (cloud physics and chemistry – Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (climatology; general circulation

Climatology of extratropical transition for North Atlantic tropical cyclones in the high-resolution GFDL climate model

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, M.; Vecchi, G. A.; Smith, J. A.

2015-12-01

The extratropical transition (ET) process of tropical cyclones can lead to fundamental changes in hurricane structure and storms that continue to pose large threats to life and properties. Given the importance of ET, it is necessary to understand how ET changes under a warming climate. Towards this goal, the GFDL climate model (FLOR) is first used to understand the current-day ET climatology. The standard model and a flux-adjusted version of FLOR are both used to examine ET climatology. The operational cyclone phase space method is used to define the onset and completion times of ET. The ET climatology from the climate model is compared with those from two reanalysis data sets ranging from 1979 to 2012. Both models exhibit good skills at simulating the frequency map of phase space diagram. The flux-adjusted version shows much better skill in capturing the ET climatology in terms of ET track patterns, ET locations and monthly ET variations. The model is able to simulate the frequency ratio of reintensified tropical cyclones from all ET cases. Future work involves examining changes in the ET climatology under a changing climate.

Multi-satellite climatologies of fundamental atmospheric variables from Radio Occulation and their validation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pirscher, B.

2010-01-01

Monitoring of global climate change requires high quality observations not only on the Earths surface but also in the free atmosphere. Global Positioning System (GPS) Radio Occultation (RO) observations are known to have the potential to deliver very accurate, precise, and long-term stable measurements between about 8 km and 30 km altitude.This thesis investigates the suitability of RO observations to serve as climate benchmark record by validating the consistency of RO data provided by different satellites. The main focus lies on systematic differences of RO climatologies, originating from different data processing, data quality, spatio-temporal sampling, and particular orbit characteristics. Data of six RO satellite missions (including one multi-satellite constellation) are analyzed. Largest disagreements of RO climatologies are observed when comparing data provided by different processing centers. Mean absolute temperature differences between 8 km and 30 km altitude amount to 0.5 K, while climate time series of temperature changes agree much closer.Utilizing RO data from the same data center and considering space-temporal sampling yields remarkable consistency of temperature climatologies with mean differences being smaller than 0.1 K. Disagreements are found to be largest at 35 km, where they exceed 0.2 K. This results from different data quality and its utilization within the processing scheme. Climatologies, which are derived from data with the same quality agree to within 0.02 K also at high altitudes. The measurements local time, which depends on the satellites orbit, has a minor but clearly understandable influence on differences in RO climatologies. The results underline the utility of RO data for long-term monitoring of the global climate. (author) [de

A stratospheric NO2 climatology from Odin/OSIRIS limb-scatter measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brohede, S.; Murtagh, D.; Berthet, G.; Haley, C.S.

2007-01-01

Since the late 1960s, it has been known that stratospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and ozone are closely coupled. However, stratospheric nitrogen chemistry is not yet fully understood, given the lack of observing systems that can provide both high vertical and temporal resolution measurements of NO 2 . Limb-scattering data from the optical spectrograph and infrared imager system (OSIRIS) aboard the Odin satellite was used in this study along with a photochemical box model to investigate stratospheric NO 2 climatology in terms of mean and standard deviation as a function of latitude, altitude, month and local solar time. The Odin orbit provided near global coverage around the equinoxes and hemispheric coverage elsewhere, due to lack of sunlight. The mean NO 2 field at a specific local solar time involved high concentrations in the polar summer, peaking at about 25 km, with a negative equatorward gradient. High levels between 40 to 50 degrees latitude at 30 km in the winter/spring hemisphere were also found, and were associated with the Noxon-cliff. The diurnal cycle revealed the lowest NO 2 concentrations just after sunrise and steep gradients at twilight. The 1σ standard deviation was around 20 per cent, except for winter and spring high latitudes, where values were above 50 per cent and stretched through the entire stratosphere. NO 2 concentrations were found to be log-normally distributed. Comparisons with the REPROBUS chemical transport model for climatology showed that the relative differences for the mean values were below 20 per cent and comparable to the estimated OSIRIS systematic uncertainty. The polar regions in winter/spring throughout the atmosphere and equatorial regions below 25 km were exceptions, where OSIRIS was higher by 40 per cent and more. It was concluded that further study is needed to determine if these discrepancies are due to limitations of the model. 47 refs., 10 figs., 1 appendix

Validation of Long-Term Global Aerosol Climatology Project Optical Thickness Retrievals Using AERONET and MODIS Data

Science.gov (United States)

Geogdzhayev, Igor V.; Mishchenko, Michael I.

2015-01-01

A comprehensive set of monthly mean aerosol optical thickness (AOT) data from coastal and island AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) stations is used to evaluate Global Aerosol Climatology Project (GACP) retrievals for the period 1995-2009 during which contemporaneous GACP and AERONET data were available. To put the GACP performance in broader perspective, we also compare AERONET and MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua level-2 data for 2003-2009 using the same methodology. We find that a large mismatch in geographic coverage exists between the satellite and ground-based datasets, with very limited AERONET coverage of open-ocean areas. This is especially true of GACP because of the smaller number of AERONET stations at the early stages of the network development. Monthly mean AOTs from the two over-the-ocean satellite datasets are well-correlated with the ground-based values, the correlation coefficients being 0.81-0.85 for GACP and 0.74-0.79 for MODIS. Regression analyses demonstrate that the GACP mean AOTs are approximately 17%-27% lower than the AERONET values on average, while the MODIS mean AOTs are 5%-25% higher. The regression coefficients are highly dependent on the weighting assumptions (e.g., on the measure of aerosol variability) as well as on the set of AERONET stations used for comparison. Comparison of over-the-land and over-the-ocean MODIS monthly mean AOTs in the vicinity of coastal AERONET stations reveals a significant bias. This may indicate that aerosol amounts in coastal locations can differ significantly from those in adjacent open-ocean areas. Furthermore, the color of coastal waters and peculiarities of coastline meteorological conditions may introduce biases in the GACP AOT retrievals. We conclude that the GACP and MODIS over-the-ocean retrieval algorithms show similar ranges of discrepancy when compared to available coastal and island AERONET stations. The factors mentioned above may limit the performance of the

Tower Mesonetwork Climatology and Interactive Display Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Case, Jonathan L.; Bauman, William H., III

2004-01-01

Forecasters at the 45th Weather Squadron and Spaceflight Meteorology Group use data from the tower network over the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) to evaluate Launch Commit Criteria, and issue and verify forecasts for ground operations. Systematic biases in these parameters could adversely affect an analysis, forecast, or verification. Also, substantial geographical variations in temperature and wind speed can occur under specific wind directions. To address these concerns, the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) developed a climatology of temperatures and winds from the tower network, and identified the geographical variation and significant tower biases. The mesoclimate is largely driven by the complex land-water interfaces across KSC/CCAFS. Towers with close proximity to water typically had much warmer nocturnal temperatures and higher wind speeds throughout the year. The strongest nocturnal wind speeds occurred from October to March whereas the strongest mean daytime wind speeds occurred from February to May. These results of this project can be viewed by forecasters through an interactive graphical user interface developed by the AMU. The web-based interface includes graphical and map displays of mean, standard deviation, bias, and data availability for any combination of towers, variables, months, hours, and wind directions.

Climatological Implications of Deep-Rooting in Water-Limited Ecosystems

Science.gov (United States)

Amenu, G. G.; Kumar, P.

2005-12-01

In vegetated ecosystems, plants are the primary channels that connect the soil with the atmosphere (through water, energy, carbon, and nutrient cycles), with plant roots controlling the below-ground dynamics. Recently, several observational evidences are emerging which suggests the existence of plant roots much deeper in the soil/rock profile than the depth usually perceived in existing hydroclimatological and hydroecological models. In this study, using land surface model, we assess the effects of vegetation deep-rooting on (a) moisture and temperature redistribution in the soil profile, (b) energy flux partitioning at the land surface, and (c) net primary productivity of vegetated ecosystems. Three sites characterized by different vegetation, soil, and climate (all located in arid to sub-humid regions of the United States) were studied. The sites include the Mogollon Rim in Arizona, the Edwards Plateau in Texas, and the Southern Piedmont in Georgia. Soil depths of up to 10 m are investigated. Results of this modeling effort and its implications for climatological modeling will be presented.

Tourism climatology past and present: A review of the role of the ISB Commission on Climate, Tourism and Recreation.

Science.gov (United States)

de Freitas, C R

2017-09-01

The Executive Board of the International Society of Biometeorology (ISB) founded the Commission on Climate, Tourism and Recreation (CCTR) at the 15th International Congress of Biometeorology in Sydney, Australia in 1999. The aims of the CCTR are to bring together researchers from around the world to critically review the current state of knowledge in tourism and recreation climatology and explore possibilities for future research. Almost two decades on, research in tourism climatology has developed and expanded due in large part to the initiatives and activities of the CCTR and several collaborative research projects run under the auspices of the CCTR. This work is reviewed here. Recent CCTR meeting highlighted the fact that, although climate is an essential part of the resource base for tourism, which is one of the world's biggest and fastest growing industries, relatively little is known about the effects of climate on tourist choices and broad demand patterns or the influence climate has on the commercial prospects and sustainability of tourism operators and destinations. The work here reviews what has been done, its conceptual underpinnings and current research frontiers.

Climatology of sea breezes along the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia

KAUST Repository

Khan, Basit

2018-04-25

Long-term near-surface observations from five coastal stations, high-resolution model data from Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) and high-resolution daily sea surface temperature (SST) from National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are used to investigate the climatology of sea breezes over the eastern side of the Red Sea region. Results show existence of separate sea breeze systems along different segments of the Red Sea coastline. Based on the physical character and synoptic influences, sea breezes in the Red Sea are broadly divided into three regions: the north and the middle Red Sea (NMRS), the Red Sea convergence zone (RSCZ) and the southern Red Sea (SRS) regions. On average, sea breezes developed on 67% of days of the 10-year study period. Although sea breezes occur almost all year, this mesoscale phenomenon is most frequent from May to October (78% of the total sea breeze days). The sea breeze frequency increases from north to south (equatorwards), and sea breeze characteristics appear to vary both temporally and spatially. In addition to land-sea thermal differential, coastline shape, latitude and topography, the prevailing northwesterly at NMRS region, the convergence of northwesterly and southeasterly wind system at RSCZ region and the northeast and southwest monsoon at SRS region play an important role in defining the sea breeze characteristics over the Red Sea.

Evaluation of spatio-temporal variability of Hamburg Aerosol Climatology against aerosol datasets from MODIS and CALIOP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. Pappas

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The new global aerosol climatology named HAC (Hamburg Aerosol Climatology is compared against MODIS (Collection 5, 2000–2007 and CALIOP (Level 2-version 3, 2006–2011 retrievals. The comparison of aerosol optical depth (AOD from HAC against MODIS shows larger HAC AOD values over regions with higher aerosol loads and smaller HAC AOD values than MODIS for regions with lower loads. The HAC data are found to be more reliable over land and for low AOD values. The largest differences between HAC and MODIS occur from March to August for the Northern Hemisphere and from September to February for the Southern Hemisphere. In addition, both the spectral variability and vertical distribution of the HAC AOD are examined at selected AERONET (1998–2007 sites, representative of main aerosol types (pollutants, sea salt, biomass and dust. Based on comparisons against spectral AOD values from AERONET, the mean absolute percentage error in HAC AOD data is 25% at ultraviolet wavelengths (400 nm, 6–12% at visible and 18% at near-infrared (1000 nm. For the same AERONET sites, the HAC AOD vertical distribution is compared against CALIOP space lidar data. On a daily average basis, HAD AOD is less by 9% in the lowest 3 km than CALIOP values, especially for sites with biomass burning smoke, desert dust and sea salt spray. Above the boundary layer, the HAC AOD vertical distribution is reliable.

Influence of Kuroshio SST front in the East China Sea on the climatological evolution of Meiyu rainband

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Mimi; Xu, Haiming; Ren, Huijun

2018-02-01

The influence of Kuroshio sea surface temperature (SST) front in the East China Sea (ECS) on the temporal evolution of climatological Meiyu rainband was investigated using a suite of high-resolution satellite observations and a reanalysis dataset from 2000 to 2011. During the northward seasonal march of Meiyu rainband from the warmer flank of the SST front to the colder flank, the climatological rainband strength weakened substantially despite large-scale environment became more conducive to intensify precipitation. A sharp reduction in occurrence frequency of precipitation with relatively shallower depth and smaller intensity was responsible for the weakening of Meiyu rainband. During the northward migration of Meiyu rainband, individual precipitation events became deeper and more intensive, and the contribution of convective precipitation to the rainband was enhanced, associated with the seasonal northward extension of high convective instability region over the ECS. The characteristics of Meiyu rainband evolution were generally supported by cloud observations. When Meiyu rainband was located on the warmer flank of the SST front, local enhanced mean surface wind convergence and variance of convergence at synoptic timescale by the warm SST of the Kuroshio favored strong surface convergence that may trigger precipitation. A detailed moisture budget analysis revealed that the major part of moisture for Meiyu precipitation was supplied by low-level wind convergence, with much smaller contribution from moisture advection. The variation of climatological precipitation associated with Meiyu northward migration depended on SST modulation of both surface evaporation and low-level moisture convergence over the ECS.

Regional Assessment of Supplementation Project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1991-10-01

The Fish and Wildlife Program of the Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC) prescribes several approaches to achieve its goal of doubling the salmon and steelhead runs of the Columbia River. Among those approaches are habitat restoration, improvements in adult and juvenile passage at dams and artificial propagation. Supplementation will be a major part of the new hatchery programs. The purpose of the Regional Assessment of Supplementation Project (RASP) is to provide an overview of ongoing and planned supplementation activities, to construct a conceptual framework and model for evaluating the potential benefits and risks of supplementation and to develop a plan for better regional coordination of research and monitoring and evaluation of supplementation. RASP has completed its first year of work. Progress toward meeting the first year's objectives and recommendations for future tasks are contained in this report

40 CFR 93.127 - Projects exempt from regional emissions analyses.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... analysis requirements. The local effects of these projects with respect to CO concentrations must be... determination. The local effects of projects with respect to PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations must be considered... 40 Protection of Environment 20 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Projects exempt from regional...

Climatological changing effects on wind, precipitation and erosion: Large, meso and small scale analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aslan, Z.

2004-01-01

The Fourier transformation analysis for monthly average values of meteorological parameters has been considered, and amplitudes, phase angles have been calculated by using ground measurements in Turkey. The first order harmonics of meteorological parameters show large scale effects, while higher order harmonics show the effects of small scale fluctuations. The variations of first through sixth order harmonic amplitudes and phases provide a useful means of understanding the large and local scale effects on meteorological parameters. The phase angle can be used to determine the time of year the maximum or minimum of a given harmonic occurs. The analysis helps us to distinguish different pressure, relative humidity, temperature, precipitation and wind speed regimes and transition regions. Local and large scale phenomenon and some unusual seasonal patterns are also defined near Keban Dam and the irrigation area. Analysis of precipitation based on long term data shows that semi-annual fluctuations are predominant in the study area. Similarly, pressure variations are mostly influenced by semi-annual fluctuations. Temperature and humidity variations are mostly influenced by meso and micro scale fluctuations. Many large and meso scale climate change simulations for the 21st century are based on concentration of green house gases. A better understanding of these effects on soil erosion is necessary to determine social, economic and other impacts of erosion. The second part of this study covers the time series analysis of precipitation, rainfall erosivity and wind erosion at the Marmara Region. Rainfall and runoff erosivity factors are defined by considering the results of field measurements at 10 stations. Climatological changing effects on rainfall erosion have been determined by monitoring meteorological variables. In the previous studies, Fournier Index is defined to estimate the rainfall erosivity for the study area. The Fournier Index or in other words a climatic index

Fog and dew climatology over Hisar, India

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Surender, S.; Diwan, S.; Rao, V.U.M.

2006-05-01

In many arid and semi-arid areas, pumped ground water and the water from streams, rivers and reservoirs is no longer sufficient to cover the ever increasing water demand. Therefore new interest in 'marginal' water resources like fog and dew harvesting are to be developed after studying climatology of these parameters in a region. The observations on dew and fog events recorded at Hisar, representing semi-arid region of India during winter season (October to March) for the period 1980 to 2005 have been analyzed. The total annual dew amount in winter season ranged between 33 mm (1987-88) and 79 mm (1981-82) during the period under study. The seasonal dewfall showed a decreasing trend of 1.4 mm during the period under investigation. Average maximum dew events (26.1) were recorded during November and average minimum dew events were recorded in February. In a particular season, the highest dew events (168) were observed during the winter seasons of 1982-83 and 1983-84, whereas, the minimum number of dew events (97) was reported during 1998-99. Interestingly, an increasing trend (1.3 day/season) in occurrence of fog events was seen. Average maximum foggy events (8.7) recorded in a month were observed in January. In a particular season, the maximum foggy events (41) were recorded during 2002-03 and the minimum (2) during 1983-84. To achieve the objective of alternate source of water and to assess the impact of dew and fog on agricultural crops for their growth and development, inputs from various specialized disciplines and allied sciences engaged in meteorological applications along with forecasting skills from non scientific quarters are needed to predict the weather parameter accurately, thus the active cooperation between meteorological/remote sensing agencies, agricultural organizations and farming community is needed for sustainable agricultural development in scarce/limited water availability regions. (author)

Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Approaches to Ecosystem Management Project

OpenAIRE

CIPAV (Centre For Research on Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems); CATIE (Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion y Ensenanza); NITLAPAN

2007-01-01

Metadata only record The Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Approaches to Ecosystem Management Project introduces the payment for environmental services approach to silvopastoral farmers in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. The objectives of the project are to "demonstrate and measure a) the effects the introduction of payment incentives for environmental services to farmers on their adoption of integrated silvopastoral farming systems in degraded pasture lands; and b) the resulting impr...

Informatic infrastructure for Climatological and Oceanographic data based on THREDDS technology in a Grid environment

Science.gov (United States)

Tronconi, C.; Forneris, V.; Santoleri, R.

2009-04-01

CNR-ISAC-GOS is responsible for the Mediterranean Sea satellite operational system in the framework of MOON Patnership. This Observing System acquires satellite data and produces Near Real Time, Delayed Time and Re-analysis of Ocean Colour and Sea Surface Temperature products covering the Mediterranean and the Black Seas and regional basins. In the framework of several projects (MERSEA, PRIMI, Adricosm Star, SeaDataNet, MyOcean, ECOOP), GOS is producing Climatological/Satellite datasets based on optimal interpolation and specific Regional algorithm for chlorophyll, updated in Near Real Time and in Delayed mode. GOS has built • an informatic infrastructure data repository and delivery based on THREDDS technology The datasets are generated in NETCDF format, compliant with both the CF convention and the international satellite-oceanographic specification, as prescribed by GHRSST (for SST). All data produced, are made available to the users through a THREDDS server catalog. • A LAS has been installed in order to exploit the potential of NETCDF data and the OPENDAP URL. It provides flexible access to geo-referenced scientific data • a Grid Environment based on Globus Technologies (GT4) connecting more than one Institute; in particular exploiting CNR and ESA clusters makes possible to reprocess 12 years of Chlorophyll data in less than one month.(estimated processing time on a single core PC: 9months). In the poster we will give an overview of: • the features of the THREDDS catalogs, pointing out the powerful characteristics of this new middleware that has replaced the "old" OPENDAP Server; • the importance of adopting a common format (as NETCDF) for data exchange; • the tools (e.g. LAS) connected with THREDDS and NETCDF format use. • the Grid infrastructure on ISAC We will present also specific basin-scale High Resolution products and Ultra High Resolution regional/coastal products available on these catalogs.

Quantifying the climatological cloud-free direct radiative forcing of aerosol over the Red Sea

KAUST Repository

Brindley, Helen

2015-04-01

A combination of ground-based and satellite observations are used, in conjunction with column radiative transfer modelling, to assess the climatological aerosol loading and quantify its corresponding cloud-free direct radiative forcing (DRF) over the Red Sea. While there have been campaigns designed to probe aerosol-climate interactions over much of the world, relatively little attention has been paid to this region. Because of the remoteness of the area, satellite retrievals provide a crucial tool for assessing aerosol loading over the Sea. However, agreement between aerosol properties inferred from measurements from different instruments, and even in some cases from the same measurements using different retrieval algorithms can be poor, particularly in the case of mineral dust. Ground based measurements which can be used to evaluate retrievals are thus highly desirable. Here we take advantage of ship-based sun-photometer micro-tops observations gathered from a series of cruises which took place across the Red Sea during 2011 and 2013. To our knowledge these data represent the first set of detailed aerosol measurements from the Sea. They thus provide a unique opportunity to assess the performance of satellite retrieval algorithms in this region. Initially two aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieval algorithms developed for the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) instruments are evaluated via comparison with the co-located cruise observations. These show excellent agreement, with correlations typically better than 0.9 and very small root-mean-square and bias differences. Calculations of radiative fluxes and DRF along one of the cruises using the observed aerosol and meteorological conditions also show good agreement with co-located estimates from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument if the aerosol asymmetry parameter is adjusted to account for the presence of large

Climatology and decadal variability of the Ross Sea shelf waters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Russo

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The World Ocean Database 2001 data located in the Ross Sea (named WOD01 and containing data in this region since 1928 are merged with recent data collected by the Italian expeditions (CLIMA dataset in the period November 1994-February 2004 in the same area. From this extended dataset, austral summer climatologies of the main Ross Sea subsurface, intermediate and bottom water masses: High Salinity Shelf Water (HSSW, Low Salinity Shelf Water (LSSW, Ice Shelf Water (ISW and Modified Circumpolar Deep Water (MCDW have been drawn. The comparison between the WOD01_1994 climatologies (a subset of the WOD01 dataset until April 1994 and the CLIMA ones for the period 1994/95-2003/04 showed significant changes occurred during the decade. The freshening of the Ross Sea shelf waters which occurred during the period 1960-2000, was confirmed by our analysis in all the main water masses, even though with a spatially varying intensity. Relevant variations were found for the MCDW masses, which appeared to reduce their presence and to deepen; this can be ascribed to the very limited freshening of the MCDW core, which allowed an increased density with respect to the surrounding waters. Variations in the MCDW properties and extension could have relevant consequences, e.g. a decreased Ross Ice Shelf basal melting or a reduced supply of nutrients, and may also be indicative of a reduced thermohaline circulation within the Ross Sea. Shelf Waters (SW having neutral density γn > 28.7 Kg m-3, which contribute to form the densest Antarctic Bottom Waters (AABW, showed a large volumetric decrease in the 1994/95-2003/04 decade, most likely as a consequence of the SW freshening.

Development of the business area construction and energy of EnergieRegion Nuernberg. Transfer from project management to a regional network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seiverth, A.

2006-01-01

The association EnergieRegion Nuernberg is a regional authority network, which is employed with the promotion of sustainable handling of the factor energy in the region Nuernberg and with the proliferation of this region as internationally recognized location for energy engineering, energy industry and energy science. The intention is to use the important industrial, service-oriented and scientific potential optimally. For this reason a functional co-ordination and communication platform had to be created for the cross-linking of the appropriate participants from economics, research and public administration. Therefore, the author of the contribution under consideration accompanies the development process of the business field construction and energy of this association in the background of the current trends in the construction and energy sector in the region Nuernberg. Under this aspect, the author reports on the following aspects: (a) Success factors of the project management in a regional network; (b) Operationalisation of the success of the project by means of a model; (c) Analysis of the different aspects of energetic measures; (d) Determination of chances and risks of the range building and energy in the region Nuernberg; (e) Comparison of the success of the model projects with the model for the determination of project success; (f) Determination of strengths and weaknesses of the project management in the business field construction and energy of the energy region Nuernberg

Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Agro-climatology Analysis Tools and Knowledge Base Products for Food Security Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Budde, M. E.; Rowland, J.; Anthony, M.; Palka, S.; Martinez, J.; Hussain, R.

2017-12-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) supports the use of Earth observation data for food security monitoring through its role as an implementing partner of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). The USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center has developed tools designed to aid food security analysts in developing assumptions of agro-climatological outcomes. There are four primary steps to developing agro-climatology assumptions; including: 1) understanding the climatology, 2) evaluating current climate modes, 3) interpretation of forecast information, and 4) incorporation of monitoring data. Analysts routinely forecast outcomes well in advance of the growing season, which relies on knowledge of climatology. A few months prior to the growing season, analysts can assess large-scale climate modes that might influence seasonal outcomes. Within two months of the growing season, analysts can evaluate seasonal forecast information as indicators. Once the growing season begins, monitoring data, based on remote sensing and field information, can characterize the start of season and remain integral monitoring tools throughout the duration of the season. Each subsequent step in the process can lead to modifications of the original climatology assumption. To support such analyses, we have created an agro-climatology analysis tool that characterizes each step in the assumption building process. Satellite-based rainfall and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)-based products support both the climatology and monitoring steps, sea-surface temperature data and knowledge of the global climate system inform the climate modes, and precipitation forecasts at multiple scales support the interpretation of forecast information. Organizing these data for a user-specified area provides a valuable tool for food security analysts to better formulate agro-climatology assumptions that feed into food security assessments. We have also developed a knowledge

Mars Sample Return: The Next Step Required to Revolutionize Knowledge of Martian Geological and Climatological History

Science.gov (United States)

Mittlefehldt, D. W.

2012-01-01

sediments derived from an extensive region of Mars can provide important, detailed understanding of early martian geological and climatological history. Interrogating clastic "sediments" from the Earth, Moon and asteroids has allowed discovery of new crustal units, identification of now-vanished crust, and determination of the geological history of extensive, remote regions. Returned sample of martian fluvial and/or aeolian sediments, for example from Gale crater, could be "read like a book" in terrestrial laboratories to provide truly revolutionary new insights into early martian geological and climatological evolution.

PROJECTED PRECIPITATION CHANGES IN CENTRAL/EASTERN EUROPE ON THE BASIS OF ENSEMBLE SIMULATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erika Miklos

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Projected precipitation changes in Central/Eastern Europe on the basis of ENSEMBLE simulations. For building appropriate local/national adaptation and mitigation strategies, detailed analysis of regional climate change is essential. In order to estimate the climate change for the 21st century, both global and regional models may be used. However, due to the coarse horizontal resolution, global climate models are not appropriate to describe regional scale climate processes. On the other hand, regional climate models (RCMs provide more realistic regional climate scenarios. A wide range of RCM experiments was accomplished in the frame of the ENSEMBLES project funded by the EU FP6 program, which was one of the largest climate change research project ever completed. All the RCM experiments used 25 km horizontal resolution and the A1B emission scenario, according to which CO2 concentration by 2100 is estimated to exceed 700 ppm, i.e., more than twice of the preindustrial level.The 25 km spatial resolution is fine enough to estimate the future hydrology-related conditions in different parts of Europe, from which we separated and analyzed simulated climate data sets for the Central/Eastern European region. Precipitation is an especially important climatological variable because of agricultural aspects and flood-related natural hazards, which may seriously affect all the countries in the evaluated region. On the basis of our results, different RCM simulations generally project drier summers and wetter winters (compared to the recent decades. The southern countries are more likely to suffer more intense warming, especially, in summer, and also, more intense drought events due to the stronger Mediterranean impact.

Regional hydrogen roadmap. Project development framework for the Sahara Wind Project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Benhamou, Khalid [Sahara Wind Inc., Rabat (Morocco); Arbaoui, Abdelaziz [Ecole National Superieure des Arts et Metiers ENSAM Meknes (Morocco); Loudiyi, Khalid [Al Akhawayn Univ. (Morocco); Ould Mustapha, Sidi Mohamed [Nouakchott Univ. (Mauritania). Faculte des Sciences et Techniques

2010-07-01

The trade winds that blow along the Atlantic coast from Morocco to Senegal represent one of the the largest and most productive wind potentials available on earth. Because of the erratic nature of winds however, wind electricity cannot be integrated locally on any significant scale, unless mechanisms are developed for storing these intermittent renewable energies. Developing distributed wind energy solutions feeding into smaller electricity markets are essential for solving energy access issues and enabling the development of a local, viable renewable energy industry. These may be critical to address the region's economic challenges currently under pressure from Sub-Saharan migrant populations. Windelectrolysis for the production of hydrogen can be used in grid stabilization, as power storage, fuel or chemical feedstock in specific industries. The objective of the NATO SfP 'Sahara Trade Winds to Hydrogen' project is to support the region's universities through an applied research framework in partnership with industries where electrolysis applications are relevant. By powering two university campuses in Morocco and Mauritania with small grid connected wind turbines and 30 kW electrolyzers generating hydrogen for power back-up as part of ''green campus concepts'' we demonstrated that wind-electrolysis for the production of hydrogen could absorb larger quantities of cheap generated wind electricity in order to maximize renewable energy uptakes within the regions weaker grid infrastructures. Creating synergies with local industries to tap into a widely available renewable energy source opens new possibilities for end users such as utilities or mining industries when processing raw minerals, whose exports generates key incomes in regions most exposed to desertification and climate change issue. Initiated by Sahara Wind Inc. a company from the private sector, along with the Al Akhawayn University, the Ecole Nationale Superieure

Use of regional climate model simulations as an input for hydrological models for the Hindukush-Karakorum-Himalaya region

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Akhtar, M.; Ahmad, N.; Booij, Martijn J.

2009-01-01

The most important climatological inputs required for the calibration and validation of hydrological models are temperature and precipitation that can be derived from observational records or alternatively from regional climate models (RCMs). In this paper, meteorological station observations and

Dynamical downscaling of ERA-40 in complex terrain using the WRF regional climate model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Heikkilae, U. [Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Uni Bjerknes Centre, Bergen (Norway); Sandvik, A. [Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Institute for Marine Research (IMR), Bergen (Norway); Sorteberg, A. [University of Bergen, Geophysical Institute, Bergen (Norway)

2011-10-15

Results from a first-time employment of the WRF regional climate model to climatological simulations in Europe are presented. The ERA-40 reanalysis (resolution 1 ) has been downscaled to a horizontal resolution of 30 and 10 km for the period of 1961-1990. This model setup includes the whole North Atlantic in the 30 km domain and spectral nudging is used to keep the large scales consistent with the driving ERA-40 reanalysis. The model results are compared against an extensive observational network of surface variables in complex terrain in Norway. The comparison shows that the WRF model is able to add significant detail to the representation of precipitation and 2-m temperature of the ERA-40 reanalysis. Especially the geographical distribution, wet day frequency and extreme values of precipitation are highly improved due to the better representation of the orography. Refining the resolution from 30 to 10 km further increases the skill of the model, especially in case of precipitation. Our results indicate that the use of 10-km resolution is advantageous for producing regional future climate projections. Use of a large domain and spectral nudging seems to be useful in reproducing the extreme precipitation events due to the better resolved synoptic scale features over the North Atlantic, and also helps to reduce the large regional temperature biases over Norway. This study presents a high-resolution, high-quality climatological data set useful for reference climate impact studies. (orig.)

Projections of Declining Surface-Water Availability for the Southwestern United States

Science.gov (United States)

Seager, Richard; Ting, Mingfang; Li, Cuihua; Naik, Naomi; Cook, Benjamin; Nakamura, Jennifer; Liu, Haibo

2012-01-01

bias for the Colorado headwaters as also shown in Figure S1. Here the observed runoff values are taken from simulations of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) land surface-hydrology model (3) forced by observed meteorology (5) that were conducted as part of the North American Land Data Assimilation System project phase 2 ( (NLDAS-2), http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/nldas/. Runoff for California-Nevada is better simulated but there is a positive bias over Texas despite no strong precipitation bias. To check whether regional climate models better simulate P and runoff in these regions we analyzed the historical simulation with the Regional Climate Model version 3 driven by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Department of Energy Reanalysis 2 available from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (http://www.narccap.ucar.edu). This model configuration retained these biases in P and runoff although they were reduced in amplitude. Given these varying biases we plot P and P - E changes in actual values but apply the simplest bias correction possible to the runoff and soil moisture values and show the modeled changes in terms of percentages of the 20th Century model climatologies. A thorough assessment of the simulation of North American climate in CMIP5 models is conducted in Sheffield at al. (North American Climate in CMIP5 Experiments. Part I: Evaluation of 20th Century Continental and Regional Climatology, manuscript submit ted to J. Climate, available at http://www.climate.noaa.gov/index.jsp?pg=./cpo pa/ mapp/cmip5 publications.html). Sheffield et al. analyze the climatology of precipitation, surface air temperature, low level winds, moisture fluxes, runoff etc. and conclude that the main features of the hydrological cycle, including characteristics of the atmospheric moisture balance and its seasonality, are captured in the CMP5 models subject to biases in total precipitation amounts. We chose to use all available models instead

Climatology, storm morphologies, and environments of tornadoes in the British Isles: 1980–2012

OpenAIRE

Mulder, Kelsey J.; Schultz, David M.

2015-01-01

A climatology is developed for tornadoes during 1980–2012 in the British Isles, defined in this article as England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. The climatology includes parent storm type, interannual variability, annual and diurnal cycles, intensities, oc- currence of outbreaks (defined as three or more tornadoes in the same day), geographic distribution, and environmental conditions derived from proximity soundings of tornadoe...

Up-to-date probabilistic temperature climatologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krakauer, Nir Y; Devineni, Naresh

2015-01-01

With ongoing global warming, climatologies based on average past temperatures are increasingly recognized as imperfect guides for current conditions, yet there is no consensus on alternatives. Here, we compare several approaches to deriving updated expected values of monthly mean temperatures, including moving average, exponentially weighted moving average, and piecewise linear regression. We go beyond most previous work by presenting updated climate normals as probability distributions rather than only point estimates, enabling estimation of the changing likelihood of hot and cold extremes. We show that there is a trade-off between bias and variance in these approaches, but that bias can be mitigated by an additive correction based on a global average temperature series, which has much less interannual variability than a single-station series. Using thousands of monthly temperature time series from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN), we find that the exponentially weighted moving average with a timescale of 15 years and global bias correction has good overall performance in hindcasting temperatures over the last 30 years (1984–2013) compared with the other methods tested. Our results suggest that over the last 30 years, the likelihood of extremely hot months (above the 99th percentile of the temperature probability distribution as of the early 1980s) has increased more than fourfold across the GHCN stations, whereas the likelihood of very cold months (under the 1st percentile) has decreased by over two-thirds. (letter)

Consistency of climate change projections from multiple global and regional model intercomparison projects

Science.gov (United States)

Fernández, J.; Frías, M. D.; Cabos, W. D.; Cofiño, A. S.; Domínguez, M.; Fita, L.; Gaertner, M. A.; García-Díez, M.; Gutiérrez, J. M.; Jiménez-Guerrero, P.; Liguori, G.; Montávez, J. P.; Romera, R.; Sánchez, E.

2018-03-01

We present an unprecedented ensemble of 196 future climate projections arising from different global and regional model intercomparison projects (MIPs): CMIP3, CMIP5, ENSEMBLES, ESCENA, EURO- and Med-CORDEX. This multi-MIP ensemble includes all regional climate model (RCM) projections publicly available to date, along with their driving global climate models (GCMs). We illustrate consistent and conflicting messages using continental Spain and the Balearic Islands as target region. The study considers near future (2021-2050) changes and their dependence on several uncertainty sources sampled in the multi-MIP ensemble: GCM, future scenario, internal variability, RCM, and spatial resolution. This initial work focuses on mean seasonal precipitation and temperature changes. The results show that the potential GCM-RCM combinations have been explored very unevenly, with favoured GCMs and large ensembles of a few RCMs that do not respond to any ensemble design. Therefore, the grand-ensemble is weighted towards a few models. The selection of a balanced, credible sub-ensemble is challenged in this study by illustrating several conflicting responses between the RCM and its driving GCM and among different RCMs. Sub-ensembles from different initiatives are dominated by different uncertainty sources, being the driving GCM the main contributor to uncertainty in the grand-ensemble. For this analysis of the near future changes, the emission scenario does not lead to a strong uncertainty. Despite the extra computational effort, for mean seasonal changes, the increase in resolution does not lead to important changes.

Results of large scale wind climatologically estimations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrea Kircsi

2008-05-01

Full Text Available The aim of this article is to describe theparticular field of climatology which analyzes airmovement characteristics regarding utilization of windfor energy generation. The article describes features ofwind energy potential available in Hungary compared towind conditions in other areas of the northern quartersphere in order to assist the wind energy use developmentin Hungary. Information on wind climate gives a solidbasis for financial and economic decisions ofstakeholders in the field of wind energy utilization.

Climatological determinants of woody cover in Africa

OpenAIRE

Good, Stephen P.; Caylor, Kelly K.

2011-01-01

Determining the factors that influence the distribution of woody vegetation cover and resolving the sensitivity of woody vegetation cover to shifts in environmental forcing are critical steps necessary to predict continental-scale responses of dryland ecosystems to climate change. We use a 6-year satellite data record of fractional woody vegetation cover and an 11-year daily precipitation record to investigate the climatological controls on woody vegetation cover across the African continent....

Evaluation of multiple satellite evaporation products in two dryland regions using GRACE

KAUST Repository

Lopez, Oliver

2015-12-01

Remote sensing has become a valuable tool for monitoring the water cycle variables in areas that lack the availability of ground-based measurements. Integrating multiple remote sensing-based estimates of evaporation, precipitation, and the terrestrial water storage changes with local measurements of streamflow into a consistent estimate of the regional water budget is a challenge, due to the scale mismatch among the retrieved variables. Evapotranspiration, including soil evaporation, interception losses and canopy transpiration, has received special focus in a number of recent studies that aim to provide global or regional estimates of evaporation at regular time intervals using a variety of remote sensing input. In arid and semi-arid regions, modeling of evaporation is particularly challenging due to the relatively high role of the soil evaporation component in these regions and the variable nature of rainfall events that drive the evaporation process. In this study, we explore the hydrological consistency of remote sensing products in terms of water budget closure and the correlation among spatial patterns of precipitation (P), evaporation (E) and terrestrial water storage, using P-E as a surrogate of water storage changes, with special attention to the evaporation component. The analysis is undertaken within two dryland regions that have presented recent significant changes in climatology (Murray-Darling Basin in Australia) and water storage (the Saq aquifer in northern Saudi Arabia). Water storage changes were derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spherical harmonic (SH) coefficients. Six remote sensing-based evaporation estimates were subtracted from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP)-based precipitation estimates and were compared with GRACE-derived water storage changes. Our results suggest that it is not possible to close the water balance by using satellite data alone, even when adopting a spherical harmonic

Climatology of nocturnal low-level jets over North Africa and implications for modeling mineral dust emission.

Science.gov (United States)

Fiedler, S; Schepanski, K; Heinold, B; Knippertz, P; Tegen, I

2013-06-27

[1] This study presents the first climatology for the dust emission amount associated with Nocturnal Low-Level Jets (NLLJs) in North Africa. These wind speed maxima near the top of the nocturnal boundary layer can generate near-surface peak winds due to shear-driven turbulence in the course of the night and the NLLJ breakdown during the following morning. The associated increase in the near-surface wind speed is a driver for mineral dust emission. A new detection algorithm for NLLJs is presented and used for a statistical assessment of NLLJs in 32 years of ERA-Interim reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. NLLJs occur in 29% of the nights in the annual and spatial mean. The NLLJ climatology shows a distinct annual cycle with marked regional differences. Maxima of up to 80% NLLJ frequency are found where low-level baroclinicity and orographic channels cause favorable conditions, e.g., over the Bodélé Depression, Chad, for November-February and along the West Saharan and Mauritanian coast for April-September. Downward mixing of NLLJ momentum to the surface causes 15% of mineral dust emission in the annual and spatial mean and can be associated with up to 60% of the total dust amount in specific areas, e.g., the Bodélé Depression and south of the Hoggar-Tibesti Channel. The sharp diurnal cycle underlines the importance of using wind speed information with high temporal resolution as driving fields for dust emission models. Citation: Fiedler, S., K. Schepanski, B. Heinold, P. Knippertz, and I. Tegen (2013), Climatology of nocturnal low-level jets over North Africa and implications for modeling mineral dust emission, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 118, 6100-6121, doi:10.1002/jgrd.50394.

Spatial relationship between climatologies and changes in global vegetation activity.

Science.gov (United States)

de Jong, Rogier; Schaepman, Michael E; Furrer, Reinhard; de Bruin, Sytze; Verburg, Peter H

2013-06-01

Vegetation forms a main component of the terrestrial biosphere and plays a crucial role in land-cover and climate-related studies. Activity of vegetation systems is commonly quantified using remotely sensed vegetation indices (VI). Extensive reports on temporal trends over the past decades in time series of such indices can be found in literature. However, little remains known about the processes underlying these changes at large spatial scales. In this study, we aimed at quantifying the spatial relationship between changes in potential climatic growth constraints (i.e. temperature, precipitation and incident solar radiation) and changes in vegetation activity (1982-2008). We demonstrate an additive spatial model with 0.5° resolution, consisting of a regression component representing climate-associated effects and a spatially correlated field representing the combined influence of other factors, including land-use change. Little over 50% of the spatial variance could be attributed to changes in climatologies; conspicuously, many greening trends and browning hotspots in Argentina and Australia. The nonassociated model component may contain large-scale human interventions, feedback mechanisms or natural effects, which were not captured by the climatologies. Browning hotspots in this component were especially found in subequatorial Africa. On the scale of land-cover types, strongest relationships between climatologies and vegetation activity were found in forests, including indications for browning under warming conditions (analogous to the divergence issue discussed in dendroclimatology). © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

A Climatology of Nocturnal Low-Level Jets at Cabauw

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Baas, P.; Bosveld, F.C.; Baltink, H.K.; Holtslag, A.A.M.

2009-01-01

A climatology of nocturnal low-level jets (LLJs) is presented for the topographically flat measurement site at Cabauw, the Netherlands. LLJ characteristics are derived from a 7-yr half-hourly database of wind speed profiles, obtained from the 200-m mast and a wind profiler. Many LLJs at Cabauw

Regional and site-specific absolute humidity data for use in tritium dose calculations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Etnier, E.L.

1980-01-01

Due to the potential variability in average absolute humidity over the continental U.S., and the dependence of atmospheric 3 H specific activity on absolute humidity, availability of regional absolute humidity data is of value in estimating the radiological significance of 3 H releases. Most climatological data are in the form of relative humidity, which must be converted to absolute humidity for dose calculations. Absolute humidity was calculated for 218 points across the U.S., using the 1977 annual summary of U.S. Climatological Data, and is given in a table. Mean regional values are shown on a map. (author)

Climatology and trends of mesospheric (58-90) temperatures based upon 1982-1986 SME limb scattering profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Clancy, R. Todd; Rusch, David W.

1989-01-01

Atmospheric temperature profiles for the altitude range 58-90 km were calculated using data on global UV limb radiances from the SME satellite. The major elements of this climatology include a high vertical resolution (about 4 km) and the coverage of the 70-90 km altitude region. The analysis of this extensive data set provides a global definition of mesospheric-lower thermospheric temperature trends over the 1982-1986 period. The observations suggest a pattern of 1-2 K/year decreases in temperatures at 80-90-km altitudes accompanied by 0.5-1.5 K/year increases in temperatures at 65-80-km altitudes.

Environmental monitoring for the hot dry rock geothermal energy development project. Annual report, July 1975--June 1976

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pettitt, R.A. (comp.)

1976-09-01

The objectives of this environmental monitoring report are to provide a brief conceptual and historical summary of the Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Project, a brief overview of the environmental monitoring responsibilities and activities of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and descriptions of the studies, problems, and results obtained from the various monitoring programs. Included are descriptions of the work that has been done in three major monitoring areas: (1) water quality, both surface and subsurface; (2) seismicity, with a discussion of the monitoring strategy of regional, local, and close-in detection networks; and (3) climatology. The purpose of these programs is to record baseline data, define potential effects from the project activities, and determine and record any impacts that may occur.

'ReRegions' project - contribution of Usti region to co-operation of public administration in regions impacted by open-cast brown coal mining; Sbornik, Vyzkumny ustav pro hnede uhli

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2006-07-01

Usti Region is the Lead partner of the ReRegions project. In this project we co-operate with six partners from five European countries: Greece, Spain, Germany, Poland and Great Britain. The project's main objective is to find solutions to joint environmental and socio-economic issues. One of Usti Region's targets is to help to the change the image of the Region both in the eyes of outside subjects (professionals and general public abroad and in other regions of the Czech Republic) as well as inhabitants and representatives of public administration of Usti Region. The project is financed by the EU INTERREG IIIC East initiative. 9 figs.

Using Self-Organizing Map (SOM) Clusters of Ozonesonde Profiles to Evaluate Climatologies and Create Linkages between Meteorology and Pollution

Science.gov (United States)

Stauffer, R. M.; Thompson, A. M.; Young, G. S.; Oltmans, S. J.; Johnson, B.

2016-12-01

Ozone (O3) climatologies are typically created by averaging ozonesonde profiles on a monthly or seasonal basis, either for specific regions or zonally. We demonstrate the advantages of using a statistical clustering technique, self-organizing maps (SOM), over this simple averaging, through analysis of more than 4500 sonde profiles taken from the long-term US sites at Boulder, CO; Huntsville, AL; Trinidad Head, CA; and Wallops Island, VA. First, we apply SOM to O3 mixing ratios from surface to 12 km amsl. At all four sites, profiles in SOM clusters exhibit similar tropopause height, 500 hPa height and temperature, and total and tropospheric column O3. Second, when profiles from each SOM cluster are compared to monthly O3 means, near-tropopause O3 in three of the clusters is double (over +100 ppbv) the climatological O3 mixing ratio. The three clusters include 13-16% of all profiles, mostly from winter and spring. Large mid-tropospheric deviations from monthly means are found in two highly-populated clusters that represent either distinctly polluted (summer) or clean O3 (fall-winter, high tropopause) profiles. Thus, SOM indeed appear to represent US O3 profile statistics better than conventional climatologies. In the case of Trinidad Head, SOM clusters of O3 profile data from the lower troposphere (surface-6 km amsl) can discriminate background vs polluted O3 and the meteorology associated with each. Two of nine O3 clusters exhibit thin layers ( 100s of m thick) of high O3, typically between 1 and 4 km. Comparisons between clusters and downwind, high-altitude surface O3 measurements display a marked impact of the elevated tropospheric O­­3. Days corresponding to the high O3 clusters exhibit hourly surface O3 anomalies at surface sites of +5 -10 ppbv compared to a climatology; the anomalies can last up to four days. We also explore applications of SOM to tropical ozonesonde profiles, where tropospheric O3 variability is generally smaller.

Climatology of the Savannah River Plant site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoel, D.D.

1983-01-01

This document is intended as a reference for those involved in environmental research, and preparing environmental and safety analysis reports about aspects of operations of production and support facilities at the Savannah River Plant (SRP). The information in this document is drawn from appropriate references and from the extensive meteorological data base collected on SRP. This document contains information on the climatological characteristics of the SRP site, as well as information on relative concentrations and deposition for specific radionuclides

Regional Transmission Projects: Finding Solutions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

The Keystone Center

2005-06-15

The Keystone Center convened and facilitated a year-long Dialogue on "Regional Transmission Projects: Finding Solutions" to develop recommendations that will help address the difficult and contentious issues related to expansions of regional electric transmission systems that are needed for reliable and economic transmission of power within and across regions. This effort brought together a cross-section of affected stakeholders and thought leaders to address the problem with the collective wisdom of their experience and interests. Transmission owners sat at the table with consumer advocates and environmental organizations. Representatives from regional transmission organizations exchanged ideas with state and federal regulators. Generation developers explored common interests with public power suppliers. Together, the Dialogue participants developed consensus solutions about how to begin unraveling some of the more intractable issues surrounding identification of need, allocation of costs, and reaching consensus on siting issues that can frustrate the development of regional transmission infrastructure. The recommendations fall into three broad categories: 1. Recommendations on appropriate institutional arrangements and processes for achieving regional consensus on the need for new or expanded transmission infrastructure 2. Recommendations on the process for siting of transmission lines 3. Recommendations on the tools needed to support regional planning, cost allocation, and siting efforts. List of Dialogue participants: List of Dialogue Participants: American Electric Power American Transmission Company American Wind Energy Association California ISO Calpine Corporation Cinergy Edison Electric Institute Environmental Defense Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Great River Energy International Transmission Company ISO-New England Iowa Public Utility Board Kanner & Associates Midwest ISO National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners National Association

Adaptation of Regional Representative Soil Project and Soil Judging for Cameroon

Science.gov (United States)

Che, Celestine Akuma

2013-01-01

Representative regional soils have agricultural, cultural, economic, environmental, and historical importance to Cameroon. Twenty seven regional representative soils have been identified in Cameroon. A set of laboratory exercises, assignments and exam questions have been developed utilizing the Regional Representative Soil Project (RRSP) that…

On Diffusive Climatological Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Griffel, D. H.; Drazin, P. G.

1981-11-01

A simple, zonally and annually averaged, energy-balance climatological model with diffusive heat transport and nonlinear albedo feedback is solved numerically. Some parameters of the model are varied, one by one, to find the resultant effects on the steady solution representing the climate. In particular, the outward radiation flux, the insulation distribution and the albedo parameterization are varied. We have found an accurate yet simple analytic expression for the mean annual insolation as a function of latitude and the obliquity of the Earth's rotation axis; this has enabled us to consider the effects of the oscillation of the obliquity. We have used a continuous albedo function which fits the observed values; it considerably reduces the sensitivity of the model. Climatic cycles, calculated by solving the time-dependent equation when parameters change slowly and periodically, are compared qualitatively with paleoclimatic records.

A Climatology of Global Aerosol Mixtures to Support Sentinel-5P and Earthcare Mission Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, M.; Kazadzis, S.; Amaridis, V.; Kahn, R. A.

2015-11-01

Since constraining aerosol type with satellite remote sensing continues to be a challenge, we present a newly derived global climatology of aerosol mixtures to support atmospheric composition studies that are planned for Sentinel-5P and EarthCARE.The global climatology is obtained via application of iterative cluster analysis to gridded global decadal and seasonal mean values of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) of sulfate, biomass burning, mineral dust and marine aerosol as a proportion of the total AOD at 500nm output from the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART). For both the decadal and seasonal means, the number of aerosol mixtures (clusters) identified is ≈10. Analysis of the percentage contribution of the component aerosol types to each mixture allowed development of a straightforward naming convention and taxonomy, and assignment of primary colours for the generation of true colour-mixing and easy-to-interpret maps of the spatial distribution of clusters across the global grid. To further help characterize the mixtures, aerosol robotic network (AERONET) Level 2.0 Version 2 inversion products were extracted from each cluster‟s spatial domain and used to estimate climatological values of key optical and microphysical parameters.The aerosol type climatology represents current knowledge that would be enhanced, possibly corrected, and refined by high temporal and spectral resolution, cloud-free observations produced by Sentinel-5P and EarthCARE instruments. The global decadal mean and seasonal gridded partitions comprise a preliminary reference framework and global climatology that can help inform the choice of components and mixtures in aerosol retrieval algorithms used by instruments such as TROPOMI and ATLID, and to test retrieval results.

A European satellite-derived UV climatology available for impact studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Verdebout, J.

2004-01-01

This paper presents a satellite-derived climatology of the surface UV radiation, intended to support impact studies on the environment and human health. As of today, the dataset covers the period from 1 January 1984 to 31 August 2003, with daily dose maps covering Europe with a spatial resolution of 0.05 deg.. A comparison between the modelled erythemal daily dose and measurements in Ispra yields an r.m.s value with a relative difference of 29% and a bias of 3%. The seemingly large dispersion is, however, due to a restricted number of days for which the relative difference is very high. The climatological dataset documents systematic patterns in the geographical distribution of the surface UV radiation due to cloudiness, altitude and snow. It also shows a large year-to-year variability in monthly doses of up to ±50% in spring and ±30% in summer. (authors)

An Agro-Climatological Early Warning Tool Based on the Google Earth Engine to Support Regional Food Security Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Landsfeld, M. F.; Daudert, B.; Friedrichs, M.; Morton, C.; Hegewisch, K.; Husak, G. J.; Funk, C. C.; Peterson, P.; Huntington, J. L.; Abatzoglou, J. T.; Verdin, J. P.; Williams, E. L.

2015-12-01

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) focuses on food insecurity in developing nations and provides objective, evidence based analysis to help government decision-makers and relief agencies plan for and respond to humanitarian emergencies. The Google Earth Engine (GEE) is a platform provided by Google Inc. to support scientific research and analysis of environmental data in their cloud environment. The intent is to allow scientists and independent researchers to mine massive collections of environmental data and leverage Google's vast computational resources to detect changes and monitor the Earth's surface and climate. GEE hosts an enormous amount of satellite imagery and climate archives, one of which is the Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Stations dataset (CHIRPS). The CHIRPS dataset is land based, quasi-global (latitude 50N-50S), 0.05 degree resolution, and has a relatively long term period of record (1981-present). CHIRPS is on a continuous monthly feed into the GEE as new data fields are generated each month. This precipitation dataset is a key input for FEWS NET monitoring and forecasting efforts. FEWS NET intends to leverage the GEE in order to provide analysts and scientists with flexible, interactive tools to aid in their monitoring and research efforts. These scientists often work in bandwidth limited regions, so lightweight Internet tools and services that bypass the need for downloading massive datasets to analyze them, are preferred for their work. The GEE provides just this type of service. We present a tool designed specifically for FEWS NET scientists to be utilized interactively for investigating and monitoring for agro-climatological issues. We are able to utilize the enormous GEE computing power to generate on-the-fly statistics to calculate precipitation anomalies, z-scores, percentiles and band ratios, and allow the user to interactively select custom areas for statistical time series comparisons and predictions.

Monthly Summaries of the Global Historical Climatology Network - Daily (GHCN-D)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Monthly Summaries of Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN)-Daily is a dataset derived from GHCN-Daily. The data are produced by computing simple averages or...

Climatology of Aerosol Optical Properties in Southern Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Queface, Antonio J.; Piketh, Stuart J.; Eck, Thomas F.; Tsay, Si-Chee

2011-01-01

A thorough regionally dependent understanding of optical properties of aerosols and their spatial and temporal distribution is required before we can accurately evaluate aerosol effects in the climate system. Long term measurements of aerosol optical depth, Angstrom exponent and retrieved single scattering albedo and size distribution, were analyzed and compiled into an aerosol optical properties climatology for southern Africa. Monitoring of aerosol parameters have been made by the AERONET program since the middle of the last decade in southern Africa. This valuable information provided an opportunity for understanding how aerosols of different types influence the regional radiation budget. Two long term sites, Mongu in Zambia and Skukuza in South Africa formed the core sources of data in this study. Results show that seasonal variation of aerosol optical thicknesses at 500 nm in southern Africa are characterized by low seasonal multi-month mean values (0.11 to 0.17) from December to May, medium values (0.20 to 0.27) between June and August, and high to very high values (0.30 to 0.46) during September to November. The spatial distribution of aerosol loadings shows that the north has high magnitudes than the south in the biomass burning season and the opposite in none biomass burning season. From the present aerosol data, no long term discernable trends are observable in aerosol concentrations in this region. This study also reveals that biomass burning aerosols contribute the bulk of the aerosol loading in August-October. Therefore if biomass burning could be controlled, southern Africa will experience a significant reduction in total atmospheric aerosol loading. In addition to that, aerosol volume size distribution is characterized by low concentrations in the non biomass burning period and well balanced particle size contributions of both coarse and fine modes. In contrast high concentrations are characteristic of biomass burning period, combined with

A global ocean climatological atlas of the Turner angle: implications for double-diffusion and water-mass structure

Science.gov (United States)

You, Yuzhu

2002-11-01

The 1994 Levitus climatological atlas is used to calculate the Turner angle (named after J. Stewart Turner) to examine which oceanic water masses are favorable for double-diffusion in the form of diffusive convection or salt-fingering and which are doubly stable. This atlas complements the Levitus climatology. It reveals the major double-diffusive signals associated with large-scale water-mass structure. In total, about 44% of the oceans display double-diffusion, of which 30% is salt-fingering and 14% is diffusive double-diffusion. Results show that various central and deep waters are favorable for salt-fingering. The former is due to positive evaporation minus precipitation, and the latter is due to thermohaline circulation, i.e. the southward spreading of relatively warm, salty North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) overlying cold, fresh Antarctic Bottom Water. In the northern Indian Ocean and eastern North Atlantic, favorable conditions for salt-fingering are found throughout the water column. The Red Sea (including the Persian Gulf) and Mediterranean Sea are the sources of warm, salty water for the ocean. As consequence, temperature and salinity in these outflow regions both decrease from the sea surface to the bottom. On the other hand, ocean currents are in general sluggish in these regions. In the polar and subpolar regions of Arctic and Antarctic, Okhotsk Sea, Gulf of Alaska, the subpolar gyre of the North Pacific, the Labrador Sea, and the Norwegian Sea, the upper layer water is favorable for diffusive convection because of high latitude surface cooling and ice melting. Weak and shallow diffusive convection is also found throughout tropical regions and the Bay of Bengal. The former is due to excessive precipitation over evaporation and rain cooling, and the latter is due to both precipitation and river runoff. Diffusive convection in the ocean's interior is unique to the South Atlantic between Antarctic Intermediate Water and upper NADW (uNADW). It is the

Temporal variations of NDVI and correlations between NDVI and hydro-climatological variables at Lake Baiyangdian, China.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Fei; Wang, Xuan; Zhao, Ying; Yang, Zhifeng

2014-09-01

In this paper, correlations between vegetation dynamics (represented by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)) and hydro-climatological factors were systematically studied in Lake Baiyangdian during the period from April 1998 to July 2008. Six hydro-climatological variables including lake volume, water level, air temperature, precipitation, evaporation, and sunshine duration were used, as well as extracted NDVI series data representing vegetation dynamics. Mann-Kendall tests were used to detect trends in NDVI and hydro-climatological variation, and a Bayesian information criterion method was used to detect their abrupt changes. A redundancy analysis (RDA) was used to determine the major hydro-climatological factors contributing to NDVI variation at monthly, seasonal, and yearly scales. The results were as follows: (1) the trend analysis revealed that only sunshine duration significantly increased over the study period, with an inter-annual increase of 3.6 h/year (p NDVI trends were negligible; (2) the abrupt change detection showed that a major hydro-climatological change occurred in 2004, when abrupt changes occurred in lake volume, water level, and sunlight duration; and (3) the RDA showed that evaporation and temperature were highly correlated with monthly changes in NDVI. At larger time scales, however, water level and lake volume gradually became more important than evaporation and precipitation in terms of their influence on NDVI. These results suggest that water availability is the most important factor in vegetation restoration. In this paper, we recommend a practical strategy for lake ecosystem restoration that takes into account changes in NDVI.

A Meso-Climatology Study of the High-Resolution Tower Network Over the Florida Spaceport

Science.gov (United States)

Case, Jonathan L.; Bauman, William H., III

2004-01-01

Forecasters at the US Air Force 45th Weather Squadron (45 WS) use wind and temperature data from the tower network over the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) to evaluate Launch Commit Criteria and to issue and verify temperature and wind advisories, watches, and warnings for ground operations. The Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX also uses these data when issuing forecasts for shuttle landings at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility. Systematic biases in these parameters at any of the towers could adversely affect an analysis, forecast, or verification for all of these operations. In addition, substantial geographical variations in temperature and wind speed can occur under specific wind directions. Therefore, the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU), operated by ENSCO Inc., was tasked to develop a monthly and hourly climatology of temperatures and winds from the tower network, and identify the geographical variation, tower biases, and the magnitude of those biases. This paper presents a sub-set of results from a nine-year climatology of the KSC/CCAFS tower network, highlighting the geographical variations based on location, month, times of day, and specific wind direction regime. Section 2 provides a description of the tower mesonetwork and instrumentation characteristics. Section 3 presents the methodology used to construct the tower climatology including QC methods and data processing. The results of the tower climatology are presented in Section 4 and Section 5 summarizes the paper.

Influence of surface nudging on climatological mean and ENSO feedbacks in a coupled model

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Jieshun; Kumar, Arun

2018-01-01

Studies have suggested that surface nudging could be an efficient way to reconstruct the subsurface ocean variability, and thus a useful method for initializing climate predictions (e.g., seasonal and decadal predictions). Surface nudging is also the basis for climate models with flux adjustments. In this study, however, some negative aspects of surface nudging on climate simulations in a coupled model are identified. Specifically, a low-resolution version of the NCEP Climate Forecast System, version 2 (CFSv2L) is used to examine the influence of nudging on simulations of climatological mean and on the coupled feedbacks during ENSO. The effect on ENSO feedbacks is diagnosed following a heat budget analysis of mixed layer temperature anomalies. Diagnostics of the climatological mean state indicates that, even though SST biases in all ocean basins, as expected, are eliminated, the fidelity of climatological precipitation, surface winds and subsurface temperature (or the thermocline depth) could be highly ocean basin dependent. This is exemplified by improvements in the climatology of these variables in the tropical Atlantic, but degradations in the tropical Pacific. Furthermore, surface nudging also distorts the dynamical feedbacks during ENSO. For example, while the thermocline feedback played a critical role during the evolution of ENSO in a free simulation, it only played a minor role in the nudged simulation. These results imply that, even though the simulation of surface temperature could be improved in a climate model with surface nudging, the physics behind might be unrealistic.

7 CFR 1486.103 - Are regional projects possible under the program?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... consideration provided such projects target qualifying emerging markets in the specified region. CCC may consider activities which target qualified emerging markets in a specific region, but are conducted in a non-emerging market because of its importance as a central location and ease of access to that region. ...

All projects related to Colombia | Page 3 | IDRC - International ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Region: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, ... Violence in three Latin American cities: A comparative study between Bogota, Lima, ... Topic: Natural disasters, CLIMATOLOGY, Economic and social development, ... SOCIAL STRATIFICATION, CASE STUDIES, RESEARCH NETWORKS, ...

Regional climate projection of the Maritime Continent using the MIT Regional Climate Model

Science.gov (United States)

IM, E. S.; Eltahir, E. A. B.

2014-12-01

Given that warming of the climate system is unequivocal (IPCC AR5), accurate assessment of future climate is essential to understand the impact of climate change due to global warming. Modelling the climate change of the Maritime Continent is particularly challenge, showing a high degree of uncertainty. Compared to other regions, model agreement of future projections in response to anthropogenic emission forcings is much less. Furthermore, the spatial and temporal behaviors of climate projections seem to vary significantly due to a complex geographical condition and a wide range of scale interactions. For the fine-scale climate information (27 km) suitable for representing the complexity of climate change over the Maritime Continent, dynamical downscaling is performed using the MIT regional climate model (MRCM) during two thirty-year period for reference (1970-1999) and future (2070-2099) climate. Initial and boundary conditions are provided by Community Earth System Model (CESM) simulations under the emission scenarios projected by MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM). Changes in mean climate as well as the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events are investigated at various temporal and spatial scales. Our analysis is primarily centered on the different behavior of changes in convective and large-scale precipitation over land vs. ocean during dry vs. wet season. In addition, we attempt to find the added value to downscaled results over the Maritime Continent through the comparison between MRCM and CESM projection. Acknowledgements.This research was supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore through the Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology's Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling interdisciplinary research program.

Cluster analysis for validated climatology stations using precipitation in Mexico

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bravo Cabrera, J. L.; Azpra-Romero, E.; Zarraluqui-Such, V.; Gay-García, C.; Estrada Porrúa, F.

2012-01-01

Annual average of daily precipitation was used to group climatological stations into clusters using the k-means procedure and principal component analysis with varimax rotation. After a careful selection of the stations deployed in Mexico since 1950, we selected 349 characterized by having 35 to 40

Data rescue of NASA First ISLSCP (International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project) Field Experiment (FIFE) aerial observations

Science.gov (United States)

Santhana Vannan, S. K.; Boyer, A.; Deb, D.; Beaty, T.; Wei, Y.; Wei, Z.

2017-12-01

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC) for biogeochemical dynamics is one of the NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) data centers. ORNL DAAC (https://daac.ornl.gov) is responsible for data archival, product development and distribution, and user support for biogeochemical and ecological data and models. In particular, ORNL DAAC has been providing data management support for NASA's terrestrial ecology field campaign programs for the last several decades. Field campaigns combine ground, aircraft, and satellite-based measurements in specific ecosystems over multi-year time periods. The data collected during NASA field campaigns are archived at the ORNL DAAC (https://daac.ornl.gov/get_data/). This paper describes the effort of the ORNL DAAC team for data rescue of a First ISLSCP Field Experiment (FIFE) dataset containing airborne and satellite data observations from the 1980s. The data collected during the FIFE campaign contain high resolution aerial imageries collected over Kansas. The data rescue workflow was prepared to test for successful recovery of the data from a CD-ROM and to ensure that the data are usable and preserved for the future. The imageries contain spectral reflectance data that can be used as a historical benchmark to examine climatological and ecological changes in the Kansas region since the 1980s. Below are the key steps taken to convert the files to modern standards. Decompress the imageries using custom compression software provided with the data. The compression algorithm created for MS-DOS in 1980s had to be set up to run on modern computer systems. Decompressed files were geo-referenced by using metadata information stored in separate compressed header files. Standardized file names were applied (File names and details were described in separate readme documents). Image files were converted to GeoTIFF format with embedded georeferencing information. Leverage Open Geospatial

Incorporating regional growth into forecasts of greenhouse gas emissions from project-level residential and commercial development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rowangould, Dana; Eldridge, Melody; Niemeier, Deb

2013-01-01

To better understand the greenhouse gas (GHG) implications of land use planning decisions, regional planning organizations have developed tools to forecast the emissions from project-level residential and commercial development. This paper reviews the state of GHG emissions forecasting methods for project-level development. We argue that when forecasting changes in regional emissions it is important to make explicit what is assumed about a project′s effect on the population of residents and businesses in the region. We present five regional growth assumptions capturing the range of ways that project-level development might influence (i) construction and occupancy of similar developments elsewhere in a region and (ii) relocation of the initial activities that occur on-site before the project is built. We show that current forecasting tools inconsistently address the latter when they are interpreted as forecasted changes in regional emissions. Using a case study in Yolo County, California we demonstrate that forecasted changes in regional emissions are greatly affected by the regional growth assumption. In the absence of information about which regional growth assumption is accurate, we provide guidelines for selection of a conservative regional growth assumption. - Highlights: • Current tools inconsistently forecast GHG emissions from project-level development. • We outline five assumptions about how projects may affect regional growth. • Our assumptions capture a range of economic and population effects of projects. • Our case study shows that growth assumptions greatly affect regional GHG estimates. • We provide guidelines for selecting a conservative regional growth assumption

Short climatology of the atmospheric boundary layer using acoustic methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schubert, J.F.

1975-06-01

A climatology of the boundary layer of the atmosphere at the Savannah River Laboratory is being compiled using acoustic methods. The atmospheric phenomenon as depicted on the facsimile recorder is classified and then placed into one of sixteen categories. After classification, the height of the boundary layer is measured. From this information, frequency tables of boundary layer height and category are created and then analyzed for the percentage of time that each category was detected by the acoustic sounder. The sounder also accurately depicts the diurnal cycle of the boundary layer and, depending on the sensitivity of the system, shows microstructure that is normally unavailable using other methods of profiling. The acoustic sounder provides a means for continuous, real time measurements of the time rate of change of the depth of the boundary layer. This continuous record of the boundary layer with its convective cells, gravity waves, inversions, and frontal system passages permits the synoptic and complex climatology of the local area to be compiled. (U.S.)

Development of regional future climate change scenarios in South America using the Eta CPTEC/HadCM3 climate change projections: climatology and regional analyses for the Amazon, Sao Francisco and the Parana River basins

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marengo, Jose A.; Chou, Sin Chan; Alves, Lincoln M.; Pesquero, Jose F.; Soares, Wagner R.; Santos, Daniel C.; Lyra, Andre A.; Sueiro, Gustavo; Chagas, Diego J.; Gomes, Jorge L.; Bustamante, Josiane F.; Tavares, Priscila [National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Cachoeira Paulista, Sao Paulo (Brazil); Kay, Gillian; Betts, Richard [UK Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, Devon (United Kingdom)

2012-05-15

The objective of this study is to assess the climate projections over South America using the Eta-CPTEC regional model driven by four members of an ensemble of the Met Office Hadley Centre Global Coupled climate model HadCM3. The global model ensemble was run over the twenty-first century according to the SRES A1B emissions scenario, but with each member having a different climate sensitivity. The four members selected to drive the Eta-CPTEC model span the sensitivity range in the global model ensemble. The Eta-CPTEC model nested in these lateral boundary conditions was configured with a 40-km grid size and was run over 1961-1990 to represent baseline climate, and 2011-2100 to simulate possible future changes. Results presented here focus on austral summer and winter climate of 2011-2040, 2041-2070 and 2071-2100 periods, for South America and for three major river basins in Brazil. Projections of changes in upper and low-level circulation and the mean sea level pressure (SLP) fields simulate a pattern of weakening of the tropical circulation and strengthening of the subtropical circulation, marked by intensification at the surface of the Chaco Low and the subtropical highs. Strong warming (4-6 C) of continental South America increases the temperature gradient between continental South America and the South Atlantic. This leads to stronger SLP gradients between continent and oceans, and to changes in moisture transport and rainfall. Large rainfall reductions are simulated in Amazonia and Northeast Brazil (reaching up to 40%), and rainfall increases around the northern coast of Peru and Ecuador and in southeastern South America, reaching up to 30% in northern Argentina. All changes are more intense after 2040. The Precipitation-Evaporation (P-E) difference in the A1B downscaled scenario suggest water deficits and river runoff reductions in the eastern Amazon and Sao Francisco Basin, making these regions susceptible to drier conditions and droughts in the future

Implications of regional improvement in global climate models for agricultural impact research

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramirez-Villegas, Julian; Thornton, Philip K; Jarvis, Andy; Challinor, Andrew J

2013-01-01

Global climate models (GCMs) have become increasingly important for climate change science and provide the basis for most impact studies. Since impact models are highly sensitive to input climate data, GCM skill is crucial for getting better short-, medium- and long-term outlooks for agricultural production and food security. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) phase 5 ensemble is likely to underpin the majority of climate impact assessments over the next few years. We assess 24 CMIP3 and 26 CMIP5 simulations of present climate against climate observations for five tropical regions, as well as regional improvements in model skill and, through literature review, the sensitivities of impact estimates to model error. Climatological means of seasonal mean temperatures depict mean errors between 1 and 18 ° C (2–130% with respect to mean), whereas seasonal precipitation and wet-day frequency depict larger errors, often offsetting observed means and variability beyond 100%. Simulated interannual climate variability in GCMs warrants particular attention, given that no single GCM matches observations in more than 30% of the areas for monthly precipitation and wet-day frequency, 50% for diurnal range and 70% for mean temperatures. We report improvements in mean climate skill of 5–15% for climatological mean temperatures, 3–5% for diurnal range and 1–2% in precipitation. At these improvement rates, we estimate that at least 5–30 years of CMIP work is required to improve regional temperature simulations and at least 30–50 years for precipitation simulations, for these to be directly input into impact models. We conclude with some recommendations for the use of CMIP5 in agricultural impact studies. (letter)

Revitalisation of Orlík reservoir – case study of a regional restoration project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivana Očásková

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This case study describes the bottom-up formation of a regional project for restoring a reservoir. Land use changes in the upper Vltava river basin caused the eutrophication of Orlík reservoir, which resulted in water blooms, which in association with socio-economic changes caused a decline in tourism in this region and serious difficulties for local people. The study examines how public awareness helped in the establishment of a restoration project, its framework and strategy. Regional governance of the project management took into consideration both knowledge-based solutions and the interests of local people and municipalities. The project has the potential for resolving both environmental and socio-economic problems and providing a sustainable win-win strategy for the region, residents, tourists and stakeholders.

Climatology of the scintillation onset over southern Brazil

Science.gov (United States)

Sousasantos, Jonas; de Oliveira Moraes, Alison; Sobral, José H. A.; Muella, Marcio T. A. H.; de Paula, Eurico R.; Paolini, Rafael S.

2018-04-01

This work presents an analysis of the climatology of the onset time of ionospheric scintillations at low latitude over the southern Brazilian territory near the peak of the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA). Data from L1 frequency GPS receiver located in Cachoeira Paulista (22.4° S, 45.0° W; dip latitude 16.9° S), from September 1998 to November 2014, covering a period between solar cycles 23 and 24, were used in the present analysis of the scintillation onset time. The results show that the start time of the ionospheric scintillation follows a pattern, starting about 40 min earlier, in the months of November and December, when compared to January and February. The analyses presented here show that such temporal behavior seems to be associated with the ionospheric prereversal vertical drift (PRVD) magnitude and time. The influence of solar activity in the percentage of GPS links affected is also addressed together with the respective ionospheric prereversal vertical drift behavior. Based on this climatological study a set of empirical equations is proposed to be used for a GNSS alert about the scintillation prediction. The identification of this kind of pattern may support GNSS applications for aviation and oil extraction maritime stations positioning.

Ensemble of regional climate model projections for Ireland

Science.gov (United States)

Nolan, Paul; McGrath, Ray

2016-04-01

The method of Regional Climate Modelling (RCM) was employed to assess the impacts of a warming climate on the mid-21st-century climate of Ireland. The RCM simulations were run at high spatial resolution, up to 4 km, thus allowing a better evaluation of the local effects of climate change. Simulations were run for a reference period 1981-2000 and future period 2041-2060. Differences between the two periods provide a measure of climate change. To address the issue of uncertainty, a multi-model ensemble approach was employed. Specifically, the future climate of Ireland was simulated using three different RCMs, driven by four Global Climate Models (GCMs). To account for the uncertainty in future emissions, a number of SRES (B1, A1B, A2) and RCP (4.5, 8.5) emission scenarios were used to simulate the future climate. Through the ensemble approach, the uncertainty in the RCM projections can be partially quantified, thus providing a measure of confidence in the predictions. In addition, likelihood values can be assigned to the projections. The RCMs used in this work are the COnsortium for Small-scale MOdeling-Climate Limited-area Modelling (COSMO-CLM, versions 3 and 4) model and the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The GCMs used are the Max Planck Institute's ECHAM5, the UK Met Office's HadGEM2-ES, the CGCM3.1 model from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and the EC-Earth consortium GCM. The projections for mid-century indicate an increase of 1-1.6°C in mean annual temperatures, with the largest increases seen in the east of the country. Warming is enhanced for the extremes (i.e. hot or cold days), with the warmest 5% of daily maximum summer temperatures projected to increase by 0.7-2.6°C. The coldest 5% of night-time temperatures in winter are projected to rise by 1.1-3.1°C. Averaged over the whole country, the number of frost days is projected to decrease by over 50%. The projections indicate an average increase in the length of the growing season

GPM GROUND VALIDATION OKLAHOMA CLIMATOLOGICAL SURVEY MESONET MC3E V1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The GPM Ground Validation Oklahoma Climatological Survey Mesonet MC3E data were collected during the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) in...

Great Lakes O shore Wind Project: Utility and Regional Integration Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sajadi, Amirhossein [Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States); Loparo, Kenneth A. [Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States); D' Aquila, Robert [General Electric (GE), Albany, NY (United States); Clark, Kara [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Waligorski, Joseph G. [FirstEnergy, Akron, OH (United States); Baker, Scott [PJM Interconnection, Audubon, PA (United States)

2016-06-30

This project aims to identify transmission system upgrades needed to facilitate offshore wind projects as well as operational impacts of offshore generation on operation of the regional transmission system in the Great Lakes region. A simulation model of the US Eastern Interconnection was used as the test system as a case study for investigating the impact of the integration of a 1000MW offshore wind farm operating in Lake Erie into FirstEnergy/PJM service territory. The findings of this research provide recommendations on offshore wind integration scenarios, the locations of points of interconnection, wind profile modeling and simulation, and computational methods to quantify performance, along with operating changes and equipment upgrades needed to mitigate system performance issues introduced by an offshore wind project.

Introduction to Global Urban Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Varquez, A. C. G.; Kanda, M.; Kawano, N.; Darmanto, N. S.; Dong, Y.

2016-12-01

Urban heat island (UHI) is a widely investigated phenomenon in the field of urban climate characterized by the warming of urban areas relative to its surrounding rural environs. Being able to understand the mechanism behind the UHI formation of a city and distinguish its impact from that of global climate change is indispensable when identifying adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, the lack of UHI studies many cities especially for developing countries makes it difficult to generalize the mechanism for UHI formation. Thus, there is an impending demand for studies that focus on the simultaneous analyses of UHI and its trends throughout the world. Hence, we propose a subfield of urban climatology, called "global urban climatology" (GUC), which mainly focuses on the uniform understanding of urban climates across all cities, globally. By using globally applicable methodologies to quantify and compare urban heat islands of cities with diverse backgrounds, including their geography, climate, socio-demography, and other factors, a universal understanding of the mechanisms underlying the formation of the phenomenon can be established. The implementation of GUC involves the use of globally acquired historical observation networks, gridded meteorological parameters from climate models, global geographic information system datasets; the construction of a distributed urban parameter database; and the development of techniques necessary to model the urban climate. Research under GUC can be categorized into three approaches. The collaborative approach (1st) relies on the collection of data from micro-scale experiments conducted worldwide with the aid or development of professional social networking platforms; the analytical approach (2nd) relies on the use of global weather station datasets and their corresponding objectively analysed global outputs; and the numerical approach (3rd) relies on the global estimation of high-resolution urban-representative parameters as

A Canonical Response in Rainfall Characteristics to Global Warming: Projections by IPCC CMIP5 Models

Science.gov (United States)

Lau, William K. M.; Wu, H. T.; Kim, K. M.

2012-01-01

Changes in rainfall characteristics induced by global warming are examined based on probability distribution function (PDF) analysis, from outputs of 14 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), CMIP (5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) models under various scenarios of increased CO2 emissions. Results show that collectively CMIP5 models project a robust and consistent global and regional rainfall response to CO2 warming. Globally, the models show a 1-3% increase in rainfall per degree rise in temperature, with a canonical response featuring large increase (100-250 %) in frequency of occurrence of very heavy rain, a reduction (5-10%) of moderate rain, and an increase (10-15%) of light rain events. Regionally, even though details vary among models, a majority of the models (>10 out of 14) project a consistent large scale response with more heavy rain events in climatologically wet regions, most pronounced in the Pacific ITCZ and the Asian monsoon. Moderate rain events are found to decrease over extensive regions of the subtropical and extratropical oceans, but increases over the extratropical land regions, and the Southern Oceans. The spatial distribution of light rain resembles that of moderate rain, but mostly with opposite polarity. The majority of the models also show increase in the number of dry events (absence or only trace amount of rain) over subtropical and tropical land regions in both hemispheres. These results suggest that rainfall characteristics are changing and that increased extreme rainfall events and droughts occurrences are connected, as a consequent of a global adjustment of the large scale circulation to global warming.

76 FR 6153 - Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Campo Regional Landfill Project on...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-02-03

... for the Proposed Campo Regional Landfill Project on the Campo Indian Reservation, San Diego County, CA... proposed Campo Regional Landfill Project (Proposed Action) to be located on the Campo Indian Reservation... Landfill Project (Proposed Action). There is no Federal action of amended lease and amended sublease...

SeaWiFS Deep Blue Aerosol Optical Thickness Monthly Level 3 Climatology Data Gridded at 0.5 Degrees V004

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The SeaWiFS Deep Blue Level 3 Monthly Climatology Product contains monthly global climatology gridded (0.5 x 0.5 deg) data derived from SeaWiFS Deep Blue Level 3...

Comparison of high-latitude thermospheric meridionalwinds II: combined FPI, radar and model Climatologies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. M. Griffin

2004-03-01

Full Text Available The climatological behaviour of the thermospheric meridional wind above Kiruna, Sweden (67.4°N, 20.4°E has been investigated for seasonal and solar cycle dependence using six different techniques, comprising both model and experimental sources. Model output from both the empirical Horizontal Wind Model (HWM (Hedin et al., 1988 and the numerical Coupled Thermosphere and Ionosphere Model (CTIM are compared to the measured behaviour at Kiruna, as a single site example. The empirical International Reference Ionosphere (IRI model is used as input to an implementation of servo theory, to provide another climatology combining empirical input with a theoretical framework. The experimental techniques have been introduced in a companion paper in this issue and provide climatologies from direct measurements, using Fabry-Perot Interferometers (FPI, together with 2 separate techniques applied to the European Incoherent Scatter radar (EISCAT database to derive neutral winds. One of these techniques uses the same implementation of servo theory as has been used with the IRI model. Detailed comparisons for each season and solar activity category allow for conclusions to be drawn as to the major influences on the climatological behaviour of the wind at this latitude. Comparison of the incoherent scatter radar (ISR derived neutral winds with FPI, empirical model and numerical model winds is important to our understanding and judgement of the validity of the techniques used to derive thermospheric wind databases. The comparisons also test model performance and indicate possible reasons for differences found between the models. In turn, the conclusions point to possible improvements in their formulation. In particular it is found that the empirical models are over-reliant on mid-latitude data in their formulation, and fail to provide accurate estimates of the winds at high-latitudes.

Key words. Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (thermospheric dynamics

Comparison of high-latitude thermospheric meridionalwinds II: combined FPI, radar and model Climatologies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. M. Griffin

2004-03-01

Full Text Available The climatological behaviour of the thermospheric meridional wind above Kiruna, Sweden (67.4°N, 20.4°E has been investigated for seasonal and solar cycle dependence using six different techniques, comprising both model and experimental sources. Model output from both the empirical Horizontal Wind Model (HWM (Hedin et al., 1988 and the numerical Coupled Thermosphere and Ionosphere Model (CTIM are compared to the measured behaviour at Kiruna, as a single site example. The empirical International Reference Ionosphere (IRI model is used as input to an implementation of servo theory, to provide another climatology combining empirical input with a theoretical framework. The experimental techniques have been introduced in a companion paper in this issue and provide climatologies from direct measurements, using Fabry-Perot Interferometers (FPI, together with 2 separate techniques applied to the European Incoherent Scatter radar (EISCAT database to derive neutral winds. One of these techniques uses the same implementation of servo theory as has been used with the IRI model. Detailed comparisons for each season and solar activity category allow for conclusions to be drawn as to the major influences on the climatological behaviour of the wind at this latitude. Comparison of the incoherent scatter radar (ISR derived neutral winds with FPI, empirical model and numerical model winds is important to our understanding and judgement of the validity of the techniques used to derive thermospheric wind databases. The comparisons also test model performance and indicate possible reasons for differences found between the models. In turn, the conclusions point to possible improvements in their formulation. In particular it is found that the empirical models are over-reliant on mid-latitude data in their formulation, and fail to provide accurate estimates of the winds at high-latitudes. Key words. Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (thermospheric dynamics

Regional Development and Management of Sunk Capital: Some Issues in Project Evaluation

OpenAIRE

Gyles, Oliver

1995-01-01

Government intervention aimed at regional development can be justified where there are opportunities for profitable investement of public funds. Benefit: cost analysis can be an effective tool for economic evaluation of regional development project proposals, providcd the distinction between sunk costs and historical outlays is recognised. Because the cost of previous development is sunk, it is appropriate to value existing assets at their opportunity cost. In terms or ex ante project apprais...

Ecological projects of Semipalatinsk region rehabilitation program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Musataev, M.Kh.

2000-01-01

Number of radioecological investigations of Semipalatinsk region evident, that radiatively dangerous levels of contaminations remains only on test settlements of site, on traces of explosion dose-forming clouds, and on some sections where experiments with radioactive substances were carried out. Radiological problem includes necessity of clarification of boundaries between dirty and clean lands; study of plutonium contamination hazard and radionuclides migration with underground and surface waters; conducting of monitoring of both the water quality and the agricultural foodstuff. Today in the region the problem of psychological stress of population remains. The problem is arisen because of late consequences of nuclear tests and other factors related with insufficient well-informing of population and mistrust of population to official radiation assessments in the region. To this problem is devoted six ecological projects of Semipalatinsk site rehabilitation program proposed by 53 session of United Nation Assembly for financing by international financing organizations and by countries-donors

Analysis of projects development of enterprises in engineering industries in Khmelnytskyi region

OpenAIRE

SHKODA M.S.

2012-01-01

This article analyzes the use of development projects in the engineering industry of Khmelnitsky region. The current state of engineering field. Solves warehouse development projects engineering enterprises and activities to enhance their implementation.

Future projections of active-break spells of Indian summer monsoon in a climate change perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Sudeepkumar, B. L.; Babu, C. A.; Varikoden, Hamza

2018-02-01

The effect of global climate change on Indian summer monsoon has been analysed with special emphasis on active-break cycle. The changes in intensity and duration of active and break monsoon conditions towards the end of the century are studied by using 850 hPa zonal circulations. The analysis is carried out using twenty year climatology of historical period (1986-2005) and future projections (2080-2099) simulated as part of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5). Models are compared with NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. The models that effectively capture the circulation pattern of monsoon (JJAS) are considered for assessing the future climate in RCP 4.5 scenario. They are CanESM2, CNRM-CM5, GFDL-ESM2M, MIROC5 and MPI-ESM-LR. During the southwest monsoon period, the ensemble mean of models projects a strengthening of the wind speed towards north (north of 15°N) and weakening to the southern region (especially south of 12°N) which facilitates wetting of northern Indian regions and drying of southern peninsular regions. In the case of active-break conditions, the active spells are found to be strengthening over northern India and weakening over the peninsular India, the break spells intensify over southern tip of peninsular India indicating intense breaks. Increased propensity of short intense active days and decreased propensity of long active days are also projected by the models. The number of break spells does not show any significant changes.

A Climatological Study of Hurricane Force Extratropical Cyclones

OpenAIRE

Laiyemo, Razaak O.

2012-01-01

Using data compiled by the National Weather Service Ocean Prediction Center, a hurricane force extratropical cyclone climatology is created for three cold seasons. Using the criteria of Sanders and Gyakum (1980), it is found that 75% of the 259 storms explosively deepened. The frequency maximum in the Atlantic basin is located to the southeast of Greenland. In the Pacific, two maxima to the east of Japan are identified. These results are in good agreement with previous studies, despite differ...

Specification and evaluation of a regional PACS in the SaxTeleMed project

Science.gov (United States)

Lemke, Heinz U.; Niederlag, W.; Heuser, H.

2002-05-01

During the early development phase of PACS, its implementation was mainly a matter of the radiological department of a hospital. This is changing rapidly and PACS planning and realization is increasingly seen in the context of a hospital-wide approach. With a growth of networking amongst healthcare institutions and the growing relevance of teleradiological scenarios, new strategies must be followed which take not only local but also regional and global aspects of PACS into consideration. One such regional PACS project was initiated by the Ministry of Social Welfare of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. This 'reference model program for the digitization of imaging procedures and communication of images between hospitals in the free state of Saxony' (SaxTeleMed) covers seven regional projects distributed throughout Saxony. Each regional project is organized around so called lead hospitals, which network with other cooperating hospitals and medical practices. The regional reference projects are designed to be largely independent from one another. In some instances, however, a network connection between reference projects is also considered. Altogether, 39 hospitals and medical centers are involved in the model program. The aim of this program is to test the technical, organizational, legal and economic problems in the area of digitization and networking within the free State of Saxony. With the knowledge gained it is expected to improve future investment decisions in healthcare and above all to implement secure systems.

The mathematics of models for climatology and environment. Proceedings

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ildefonso Diaz, J. [ed.] [Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Facultad de Ciencas Matematicas

1997-12-31

This book presents a coherent survey of modelling in climatology and the environment and the mathematical treatment of those problems. It is divided into 4 parts containing a total of 16 chapters. Parts I, II and III are devoted to general models and part IV to models related to some local problems. Most of the mathematical models considered here involve systems of nonlinear partial differential equations.

Simulating a 40-year flood event climatology of Australia with a view to ocean-land teleconnections

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, Guy J.-P.; Andreadis, Konstantinos; Stampoulis, Dimitrios; Bates, Paul

2015-04-01

We develop, for the first time, a proof-of-concept version for a high-resolution global flood inundation model to generate a flood inundation climatology of the past 40 years (1973-2012) for the entire Australian continent at a native 1 km resolution. The objectives of our study includes (1) deriving an inundation climatology for a continent (Australia) as a demonstrator case to understand the requirements for expanding globally; (2) developing a test bed to assess the potential and value of current and future satellite missions (GRACE, SMAP, ICESat-2, AMSR-2, Sentinels and SWOT) in flood monitoring; and (3) answering science questions such as the linking of inundation to ocean circulation teleconnections. We employ the LISFLOOD-FP hydrodynamic model to generate a flood inundation climatology. The model will be built from freely available SRTM-derived data (channel widths, bank heights and floodplain topography corrected for vegetation canopy using ICESat canopy heights). Lakes and reservoirs are represented and channel hydraulics are resolved using actual channel data with bathymetry inferred from hydraulic geometry. Simulations are run with gauged flows and floodplain inundation climatology are compared to observations from GRACE, flood maps from Landsat, SAR, and MODIS. Simulations have been completed for the entire Australian continent. Additionally, changes in flood inundation have been correlated with indices related to global ocean circulation, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation index. We will produce data layers on flood event climatology and other derived (default) products from the proposed model including channel and floodplain depths, flow direction, velocity vectors, floodplain water volume, shoreline extent and flooded area. These data layers will be in the form of simple vector and raster formats. Since outputs will be large in size we propose to upload them onto Google Earth under the GEE API license.

Abstraction the public from scientific - applied meteorological-climatologic data

Science.gov (United States)

Trajanoska, L.

2010-09-01

Mathematical and meteorological statistic processing of meteorological-climatologic data, which includes assessment of the exactness, level of confidence of the average and extreme values, frequencies (probabilities) of the occurrence of each meteorological phenomenon and element e.t.c. helps to describe the impacts climate may have on different social and economic activities (transportation, heat& power generation), as well as on human health. Having in mind the new technology and the commercial world, during the work with meteorological-climatologic data we have meet many different challenges. Priority in all of this is the quality of the meteorological-climatologic set of data. First, we need compatible modern, sophisticated measurement and informatics solution for data. Results of this measurement through applied processing and analyze is the second branch which is very important also. Should we all (country) need that? Today we have many unpleasant events connected with meteorology, many questions which are not answered and all of this has too long lasting. We must give the answers and solve the real and basic issue. In this paper the data issue will be presented. We have too much of data but so little of real and quality applied of them, Why? There is a data for: -public applied -for jurisdiction needs -for getting fast decision-solutions (meteorological-dangerous phenomenon's) -for getting decisions for long-lasting plans -for explore in different sphere of human living So, it is very important for what kind of data we are talking. Does the data we are talking are with public or scientific-applied character? So,we have two groups. The first group which work with the data direct from the measurement place and instrument. They are store a quality data base and are on extra help to the journalists, medical workers, human civil engineers, electromechanical engineers, agro meteorological and forestry engineer e.g. The second group do work with all scientific

Climatology and Structures of Southwest Vortices in NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Xinyuan; Liu, Changhai; Fan, Guangzhou; Liu, Xiaodong; Feng, Caiyun

2017-04-01

A southwest vortex (SWV) refers to the meso-α-scale cyclonic low-pressure system originating in southwest China, as a result of interactions of large-scale circulations and the specific multi-scale topography, such as the Tibetan Plateau, Hengduan Mountain and Sichuan Basin. It is a high-impact precipitation-generating weather system in southwestern China, in the Yangtze River valley and even in north China. This paper reports on a systematic investigation of its climatological and structural characteristics over the 32-yr period of 1979-2010 using the high-resolution NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis data. The present study has the several unique features. First, the new generation reanalysis product possesses high spatial and temporal resolution, arguably being more suitable for mesoscale vortex studies as compared to the preceding reanalysis datasets and moreover enabling an examination of the diurnal behavior. Second, our 32-yr statistics are capable of producing a robust representation of the SWV climatology. Third, the application of an objective identification methodology avoids some subjective ambiguities in the manual approach that has exclusively been adopted before. Lastly, a systematic exploration of thermodynamic and kinematic structures is conducted, unlike the previous exclusive heavy-rain-generating case studies. Our major findings are summarized as follows. The SWV is a common regional weather system with an annual count of 73. Two primary source regions are identified, located in the Sichuan Basin and southeast flank of the Tibetan Plateau, respectively. The genesis displays striking seasonality, characteristic of a spring-summer (March-August) preference with a peak in May. Remarkable diurnal variations are present, with two active periods around 07 and 19 Local Time. There exist prominent regional disparities in both the seasonal and diurnal variability though. A large portion of the vortices travel a rather limited distance due partially

Renewable Resources: a national catalog of model projects. Volume 3. Southern Solar Energy Center Region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

1980-07-01

This compilation of diverse conservation and renewable energy projects across the United States was prepared through the enthusiastic participation of solar and alternate energy groups from every state and region. Compiled and edited by the Center for Renewable Resources, these projects reflect many levels of innovation and technical expertise. In many cases, a critique analysis is presented of how projects performed and of the institutional conditions associated with their success or failure. Some 2000 projects are included in this compilation; most have worked, some have not. Information about all is presented to aid learning from these experiences. The four volumes in this set are arranged in state sections by geographic region, coinciding with the four Regional Solar Energy Centers. The table of contents is organized by project category so that maximum cross-referencing may be obtained. This volume includes information on the Southern Solar Energy Center Region. (WHK)

Renewable Resources: a national catalog of model projects. Volume 1. Northeast Solar Energy Center Region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

1980-07-01

This compilation of diverse conservation and renewable energy projects across the United States was prepared through the enthusiastic participation of solar and alternate energy groups from every state and region. Compiled and edited by the Center for Renewable Resources, these projects reflect many levels of innovation and technical expertise. In many cases, a critique analysis is presented of how projects performed and of the institutional conditions associated with their success or failure. Some 2000 projects are included in this compilation; most have worked, some have not. Information about all is presented to aid learning from these experiences. The four volumes in this set are arranged in state sections by geographic region, coinciding with the four Regional Solar Energy Centers. The table of contents is organized by project category so that maximum cross-referencing may be obtained. This volume includes information on the Northeast Solar Energy Center Region. (WHK).

Renewable Resources: a national catalog of model projects. Volume 4. Western Solar Utilization Network Region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

1980-07-01

This compilation of diverse conservation and renewable energy projects across the United States was prepared through the enthusiastic participation of solar and alternate energy groups from every state and region. Compiled and edited by the Center for Renewable Resources, these projects reflect many levels of innovation and technical expertise. In many cases, a critique analysis is presented of how projects performed and of the institutional conditions associated with their success or failure. Some 2000 projects are included in this compilation; most have worked, some have not. Information about all is presented to aid learning from these experiences. The four volumes in this set are arranged in state sections by geographic region, coinciding with the four Regional Solar Energy Centers. The table of contents is organized by project category so that maximum cross-referencing may be obtained. This volume includes information on the Western Solar Utilization Network Region. (WHK)

Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station: an example of the state role in regional nuclear projects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pasternak, A.

1980-10-01

A nuclear power plant siting policy which confines new construction to existing sites will lead to the formation of large regional power centers, each involving many utilities from several states. The Palo Verde Nuclear Project in Arizona has been examined in terms of the role state regulation plays in large regional nuclear projects. State regulatory processes do not reflect the regional nature of large power centers. Decisions and actions by individual state regulatory commissions create risk and uncertainty for all the utility participants in regional projects. A climate and mechanism to encourage and facilitate interstate cooperation are needed to enhance the viability of the confined siting policy and the regional power center concept

Projections of Heat Waves Events in the Intra-Americas Region Using Multimodel Ensemble

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moises Angeles-Malaspina

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Significant accelerated warming of the Sea Surface Temperature of 0.15°C per decade (1982–2012 was recently detected, which motivated the research for the present consequences and future projections on the heat index and heat waves in the intra-Americas region. Present records every six hours are retrieved from NCEP reanalysis (1948–2015 to calculate heat waves changes. Heat index intensification has been detected in the region since 1998 and driven by surface pressure changes, sinking air enhancement, and warm/weaker cold advection. This regional warmer atmosphere leads to heat waves intensification with changes in both frequency and maximum amplitude distribution. Future projections using a multimodel ensemble mean for five global circulation models were used to project heat waves in the future under two scenarios: RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Massive heat waves events were projected at the end of the 21st century, particularly in the RCP8.5 scenario. Consequently, the regional climate change in the current time and in the future will require special attention to mitigate the more intense and frequent heat waves impacts on human health, countries’ economies, and energy demands in the IAR.

Projected impacts of climate change on regional capacities for global plant species richness.

Science.gov (United States)

Sommer, Jan Henning; Kreft, Holger; Kier, Gerold; Jetz, Walter; Mutke, Jens; Barthlott, Wilhelm

2010-08-07

Climate change represents a major challenge to the maintenance of global biodiversity. To date, the direction and magnitude of net changes in the global distribution of plant diversity remain elusive. We use the empirical multi-variate relationships between contemporary water-energy dynamics and other non-climatic predictor variables to model the regional capacity for plant species richness (CSR) and its projected future changes. We find that across all analysed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios, relative changes in CSR increase with increased projected temperature rise. Between now and 2100, global average CSR is projected to remain similar to today (+0.3%) under the optimistic B1/+1.8 degrees C scenario, but to decrease significantly (-9.4%) under the 'business as usual' A1FI/+4.0 degrees C scenario. Across all modelled scenarios, the magnitude and direction of CSR change are geographically highly non-uniform. While in most temperate and arctic regions, a CSR increase is expected, the projections indicate a strong decline in most tropical and subtropical regions. Countries least responsible for past and present greenhouse gas emissions are likely to incur disproportionately large future losses in CSR, whereas industrialized countries have projected moderate increases. Independent of direction, we infer that all changes in regional CSR will probably induce on-site species turnover and thereby be a threat to native floras.

Climatología urbana por modificación antropogénica. Alteración del balance de energía natural / Urban climatology by anthropogenic modification. Alteration of the natural energy balance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fuentes Pérez, Carlos Alberto

2015-09-01

Full Text Available La investigación valora el análisis climático histórico para establecer la temperatura y humedad relativa media, en contraste con la climatología urbana por modificación antropogénica estudio de caso, y su contribución de consigna fijado para invierno y verano que son las estaciones críticas. El procedimiento metodológico a implementar, apoya a los planificadores urbanos a no tener que participar científicamente para evaluar el emplazamiento térmico de sus proyectos y por lo tanto se puede acelerar el proceso de diseño sin comprometer el énfasis en el contexto urbano sustentable. Con base a los resultados se establecen las islas de calor urbano y su huella térmica en el hábitat. El objetivo de la presente investigación es determinar la climatología urbana por modificación antropogénica y su alteración a la calidad del hábitat en Tampico, México. The research assesses the historical climate analysis to determine the average temperature and relative humidity, in contrast to urban anthropogenic weather modification case study, and their contribution setpoint set for winter and summer are the season’s criticism. The methodology to implement, procedure supports urban planners will not have to participate to scientifically evaluate the thermal construction projects and therefore can accelerate the design process without compromising the emphasis on sustainable urban context. Based on the results of urban heat islands and thermal footprint habitat established. The objective of this research is to determine the urban climate by anthropogenic modification and alteration of habitat quality in Tampico, Mexico.

Basin-scale wind transport during the MILAGRO field campaign and comparison to climatology using cluster analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. de Foy

2008-03-01

Full Text Available The MILAGRO field campaign was a multi-agency international collaborative project to evaluate the regional impacts of the Mexico City air pollution plume as a means of understanding urban impacts on the global climate. Mexico City lies on an elevated plateau with mountains on three sides and has complex mountain and surface-driven wind flows. This paper asks what the wind transport was in the basin during the field campaign and how representative it was of the climatology. Surface meteorology and air quality data, radiosondes and radar wind profiler data were collected at sites in the basin and its vicinity. Cluster analysis was used to identify the dominant wind patterns both during the campaign and within the past 10 years of operational data from the warm dry season. Our analysis shows that March 2006 was representative of typical flow patterns experienced in the basin. Six episode types were identified for the basin-scale circulation providing a way of interpreting atmospheric chemistry and particulate data collected during the campaign. Decoupling between surface winds and those aloft had a strong influence in leading to convection and poor air quality episodes. Hourly characterisation of wind circulation during the MILAGRO, MCMA-2003 and IMADA field campaigns enables the comparisons of similar air pollution episodes and the evaluation of the impact of wind transport on measurements of the atmospheric chemistry taking place in the basin.

Three-dimensional dust aerosol distribution and extinction climatology over northern Africa simulated with the ALADIN numerical prediction model from 2006 to 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Mokhtari, M.; Tulet, P.; Fischer, C.; Bouteloup, Y.; Bouyssel, F.; Brachemi, O.

2015-08-01

The seasonal cycle and optical properties of mineral dust aerosols in northern Africa were simulated for the period from 2006 to 2010 using the numerical atmospheric model ALADIN (Aire Limitée Adaptation dynamique Développement InterNational) coupled to the surface scheme SURFEX (SURFace EXternalisée). The particularity of the simulations is that the major physical processes responsible for dust emission and transport, as well as radiative effects, are taken into account on short timescales and at mesoscale resolution. The aim of these simulations is to quantify the dust emission and deposition, locate the major areas of dust emission and establish a climatology of aerosol optical properties in northern Africa. The mean monthly aerosol optical thickness (AOT) simulated by ALADIN is compared with the AOTs derived from the standard Dark Target (DT) and Deep Blue (DB) algorithms of the Aqua-MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) products over northern Africa and with a set of sun photometer measurements located at Banizoumbou, Cinzana, Soroa, Mbour and Cape Verde. The vertical distribution of dust aerosol represented by extinction profiles is also analysed using CALIOP (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization) observations. The annual dust emission simulated by ALADIN over northern Africa is 878 Tg year-1. The Bodélé Depression appears to be the main area of dust emission in northern Africa, with an average estimate of about 21.6 Tg year-1. The simulated AOTs are in good agreement with satellite and sun photometer observations. The positions of the maxima of the modelled AOTs over northern Africa match the observed positions, and the ALADIN simulations satisfactorily reproduce the various dust events over the 2006-2010 period. The AOT climatology proposed in this paper provides a solid database of optical properties and consolidates the existing climatology over this region derived from satellites, the AERONET network and regional climate

A new precipitation and drought climatology based on weather patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Richardson, Douglas; Fowler, Hayley J; Kilsby, Christopher G; Neal, Robert

2018-02-01

Weather-pattern, or weather-type, classifications are a valuable tool in many applications as they characterize the broad-scale atmospheric circulation over a given region. This study analyses the aspects of regional UK precipitation and meteorological drought climatology with respect to a new set of objectively defined weather patterns. These new patterns are currently being used by the Met Office in several probabilistic forecasting applications driven by ensemble forecasting systems. Weather pattern definitions and daily occurrences are mapped to Lamb weather types (LWTs), and parallels between the two classifications are drawn. Daily precipitation distributions are associated with each weather pattern and LWT. Standardized precipitation index (SPI) and drought severity index (DSI) series are calculated for a range of aggregation periods and seasons. Monthly weather-pattern frequency anomalies are calculated for SPI wet and dry periods and for the 5% most intense DSI-based drought months. The new weather-pattern definitions and daily occurrences largely agree with their respective LWTs, allowing comparison between the two classifications. There is also broad agreement between weather pattern and LWT changes in frequencies. The new data set is shown to be adequate for precipitation-based analyses in the UK, although a smaller set of clustered weather patterns is not. Furthermore, intra-pattern precipitation variability is lower in the new classification compared to the LWTs, which is an advantage in this context. Six of the new weather patterns are associated with drought over the entire UK, with several other patterns linked to regional drought. It is demonstrated that the new data set of weather patterns offers a new opportunity for classification-based analyses in the UK.

Applying Multimodel Ensemble from Regional Climate Models for Improving Runoff Projections on Semiarid Regions of Spain

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia Galiano, S. G.; Olmos, P.; Giraldo Osorio, J. D.

2015-12-01

In the Mediterranean area, significant changes on temperature and precipitation are expected throughout the century. These trends could exacerbate the existing conditions in regions already vulnerable to climatic variability, reducing the water availability. Improving knowledge about plausible impacts of climate change on water cycle processes at basin scale, is an important step for building adaptive capacity to the impacts in this region, where severe water shortages are expected for the next decades. RCMs ensemble in combination with distributed hydrological models with few parameters, constitutes a valid and robust methodology to increase the reliability of climate and hydrological projections. For reaching this objective, a novel methodology for building Regional Climate Models (RCMs) ensembles of meteorological variables (rainfall an temperatures), was applied. RCMs ensembles are justified for increasing the reliability of climate and hydrological projections. The evaluation of RCMs goodness-of-fit to build the ensemble is based on empirical probability density functions (PDF) extracted from both RCMs dataset and a highly resolution gridded observational dataset, for the time period 1961-1990. The applied method is considering the seasonal and annual variability of the rainfall and temperatures. The RCMs ensembles constitute the input to a distributed hydrological model at basin scale, for assessing the runoff projections. The selected hydrological model is presenting few parameters in order to reduce the uncertainties involved. The study basin corresponds to a head basin of Segura River Basin, located in the South East of Spain. The impacts on runoff and its trend from observational dataset and climate projections, were assessed. Considering the control period 1961-1990, plausible significant decreases in runoff for the time period 2021-2050, were identified.

A Climatology of Tropospheric CO over the Central and Southeastern United States and the Southwestern Pacific Ocean Derived from Space, Air, and Ground-based Infrared Interferometer Spectra

Science.gov (United States)

McMillian, W. Wallace; Strow, L. Larrabee; Revercomb, H.; Knuteson, R.; Thompson, A.

2003-01-01

This final report summarizes all research activities and publications undertaken as part of NASA Atmospheric Chemistry and Modeling Analysis Program (ACMAP) Grant NAG-1-2022, 'A Climatology of Tropospheric CO over the Central and Southeastern United States and the Southwestern Pacific Ocean Derived from Space, Air, and Ground-based Infrared Interferometer Spectra'. Major project accomplishments include: (1) analysis of more than 300,000 AERI spectra from the ARM SGP site yielding a 5-year (1998-2002) timeseries of CO retrievals from the Lamont, OK AERI; (2) development of a prototype CO profile retrieval algorithm for AERI spectra; (3) validation and publication of the first CO retrievals from the Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (SHIS); and (4) development of a prototype AERI tropospheric O3 retrieval algorithm. Compilation and publication of the 5-year Lamont, OK timeseries is underway including a new collaboration with scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Public access to this data will be provided upon article submission. A comprehensive CO analysis of the archive of HIS spectra of remains as the only originally proposed activity with little progress. The greatest challenge faced in this project was motivating the University of Wisconsin Co-Investigators to deliver their archived HIS and AERIOO data along with the requisite temperature and water vapor profiles in a timely manner. Part of the supplied HIS dataset from ASHOE may be analyzed as part of a Master s Thesis under a separate project. Our success with the SAFARI 2000 SHIS CO analysis demonstrates the utility of such aircraft remote sensing data given the proper support from the instrument investigators. In addition to the PI and Co-I s, personnel involved in this CO climatology project include one Post Doctoral Fellow, one Research Scientist, two graduate students, and two undergraduate students. A total of fifteen presentations regarding research related to this

2017 NMC Technology Outlook for Nordic Schools A Horizon Project Regional Report

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

2017-01-01

research effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the Norwegian Centre for ICT in Education to inform Nordic school leaders and decision-makers about significant developments in technologies supporting teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in primary and secondary education across Denmark......Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Freeman, A., and Rose, K. (2017). 2017 NMC Technology Outlook for Nordic Schools: A Horizon Project Regional Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. The 2017 NMC Technology Outlook for Nordic Schools: A Horizon Project Regional Report reflects a collaborative...

Synoptic and climatological aspects of extra-tropical cyclones

Science.gov (United States)

Leckebusch, G. C.

2010-09-01

Mid-latitude cyclones are highly complex dynamical features embedded in the general atmospheric circulation of the extra-tropics. Although the basic mechanisms leading to the formation of cyclones are commonly understood, the specific conditions and physical reasons triggering extreme, partly explosive development, are still under investigation. This includes also the identification of processes which might modulate the frequency and intensity of cyclone systems on time scales from days to centennials. This overview presentation will thus focus on three main topics: Firstly, the dynamic-synoptic structures of cyclones, the possibility to objectively identify cyclones and wind storms, and actual statistical properties of cyclone occurrence under recent climate conditions are addressed. In a second part, aspects of the interannual variability and its causing mechanisms are related to the seasonal predictability of extreme cyclones producing severe storm events. Extending the time frame will mean to deduce information on decadal or even centennial time periods. Thus, actual work to decadal as well as climatological variability and changes will be presented. In the last part of the talk focus will be laid on potential socio-economical impacts of changed cyclone occurrence. By means of global and regional climate modeling, future damages in terms of insured losses will be investigated and measures of uncertainty estimated from a multi-model ensemble analysis will be presented.

Comparison of high-latitude thermospheric meridional winds II: combined FPI, radar and model climatologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Griffin, E.M.; Aruliah, A.; Mueller-Wodarg, I.C.F.; Aylward, A. [Atmospheric Physics Lab., Univ. Coll. London, London (United Kingdom)

2004-07-01

The climatological behaviour of the thermospheric meridional wind above Kiruna, Sweden (67.4 N, 20.4 E) has been investigated for seasonal and solar cycle dependence using six different techniques, comprising both model and experimental sources. Model output from both the empirical Horizontal Wind Model (HWM) (Hedin et al., 1988) and the numerical coupled thermosphere and ionosphere model (CTIM) are compared to the measured behaviour at kiruna, as a single site example. The empirical International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model is used as input to an implementation of servo theory, to provide another climatology combining empirical input with a theoretical framework. The experimental techniques have been introduced in a companion paper in this issue and provide climatologies from direct measurements, using fabry-perot interferometers (FPI), together with 2 separate techniques applied to the European incoherent scatter radar (EISCAT) database to derive neutral winds. One of these techniques uses the same implementation of servo theory as has been used with the IRI model. Detailed comparisons for each season and solar activity category allow for conclusions to be drawn as to the major influences on the climatological behaviour of the wind at this latitude. Comparison of the incoherent scatter radar (ISR) derived neutral winds with FPI, empirical model and numerical model winds is important to our understanding and judgement of the validity of the techniques used to derive thermospheric wind databases. The comparisons also test model performance and indicate possible reasons for differences found between the models. In turn, the conclusions point to possible improvements in their formulation. In particular it is found that the empirical models are over-reliant on mid-latitude data in their formulation, and fail to provide accurate estimates of the winds at high-latitudes. (orig.)

Are climatological correlations with the Hale double sunspot cycle meaningful

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goldberg, R.A.; Herman, J.R.

1975-09-01

A sunspot cycle which may have been subject to a predicted phase reversal between 1800 and 1880 A.D. is discussed. Several climatological parameters normally correlated with this cycle are examined and do not exhibit a corresponding phase reversal during this period. It is proposed that this apparent discrepency can be resolved by suitable observations during the upcoming half decade

Regional Assessment of Supplementation Project. Status report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1991-10-01

The Fish and Wildlife Program of the Northwest Power Planning Council (NPPC) prescribes several approaches to achieve its goal of doubling the salmon and steelhead runs of the Columbia River. Among those approaches are habitat restoration, improvements in adult and juvenile passage at dams and artificial propagation. Supplementation will be a major part of the new hatchery programs. The purpose of the Regional Assessment of Supplementation Project (RASP) is to provide an overview of ongoing and planned supplementation activities, to construct a conceptual framework and model for evaluating the potential benefits and risks of supplementation and to develop a plan for better regional coordination of research and monitoring and evaluation of supplementation. RASP has completed its first year of work. Progress toward meeting the first year`s objectives and recommendations for future tasks are contained in this report.

Partitioning the LIS/OTD Lightning Climatological Dataset into Separate Ground and Cloud Flash Distributions

Science.gov (United States)

Koshak, W. J.; Solarkiewicz, R. J.

2009-01-01

Presently, it is not well understood how to best model nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from lightning because lightning is highly variable. Peak current, channel length, channel altitude, stroke multiplicity, and the number of flashes that occur in a particular region (i.e., flash density) all influence the amount of lightning NOx produced. Moreover, these 5 variables are not the same for ground and cloud flashes; e.g., cloud flashes normally have lower peak currents, higher altitudes, and higher flash densities than ground flashes [see (Koshak, 2009) for additional details]. Because the existing satellite observations of lightning (Fig. 1) from the Lightning Imaging Sensor/Optical Transient Detector (LIS/OTD) do not distinguish between ground and cloud fashes, which produce different amounts of NOx, it is very difficult to accurately account for the regional/global production of lightning NOx. Hence, the ability to partition the LIS/OTD lightning climatology into separate ground and cloud flash distributions would substantially benefit the atmospheric chemistry modeling community. NOx indirectly influences climate because it controls the concentration of ozone and hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere. The importance of lightning-produced NOx is empasized throughout the scientific literature (see for example, Huntrieser et al. 1998). In fact, lightning is the most important NOx source in the upper troposphere with a global production rate estimated to vary between 2 and 20 Tg (N)yr(sup -1) (Lee et al., 1997), with more recent estimates of about 6 Tg(N)yr(sup -1) (Martin et al., 2007). In order to make accurate predictions, global chemistry/climate models (as well as regional air quality modells) must more accurately account for the effects of lightning NOx. In particular, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Model E (Schmidt et al., 2005) and the GEOS-CHEM global chemical transport model (Bey et al., 2001) would each benefit from a partitioning of the

The TARGET project in Tuscany: the first disease management model of a regional project for the prevention of hip re-fractures in the elderly.

Science.gov (United States)

Piscitelli, Prisco; Brandi, Maria Luisa; Nuti, Ranuccio; Rizzuti, Carla; Giorni, Loredano; Giovannini, Valtere; Metozzi, Alessia; Merlotti, Daniela

2010-09-01

The official inquiry on osteoporosis in Italy, promoted by the Italian Senate in 2002 concluded that proper preventive strategies should be adopted at regional level in order to prevent osteoporotic fractures. Tuscany is the first Italian region who has promoted an official program (the TARGET project) aimed to reduce osteoporotic fractures by ensuring adequate treatment to all people aged ≥65 years old who experience a hip fragility fracture. this paper provides information concerning the implementation of TARGET project in Tuscany, assuming that it may represent an useful model for similar experiences to be promoted in other Italian Regions and across Europe. we have examined the model proposed for the regional program, and we have particularly analyzed the in-hospital and post-hospitalization path of hip fractured patients aged >65 years old in Tuscany after the adoption of TARGET project by Tuscany healthcare system and during its ongoing start-up phase. orthopaedic surgeons have been gradually involved in the project and are increasingly fulfilling all the clinical prescriptions and recommendations provided in the project protocol. Different forms of cooperation between orthopaedic surgeons and other clinical specialists have been adopted at each hospital for the treatment of hip fractured elderly patients. GPs involvement needs to be fostered both at regional and local level. The effort of Tuscany region to cope with hip fractures suffered from elderly people must be acknowledged as an interesting way of addressing this critical health problem. Specific preventive strategies modelled on the Tuscany TARGET project should be implemented in other Italian regions.

Spatial and temporal analysis of a 17-year lightning climatology over Bangladesh with LIS data

Science.gov (United States)

Dewan, Ashraf; Ongee, Emmanuel T.; Rahman, Md. Masudur; Mahmood, Rezaul; Yamane, Yusuke

2017-10-01

Using NASA's TRMM Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) data from 1998 to 2014, this paper presents a 17-year lightning climatology of Bangladesh, at 0.5° × 0.5° spatial resolution. Diurnal, seasonal, monthly and annual variations in the occurrence of lightning flashes were explored. The diurnal regime of lightning is dominated by afternoon/evening events. Overall, peak lightning activity occurs in the early morning (0200 LST) and evening (1900 LST). The distribution of lightning flash counts by season over Bangladesh landmass is as follows: pre-monsoon (69.2%), monsoon (24.1%), post-monsoon (4.6%) and winter (2.1%). Flash rate density (FRD) hotspots were primarily located in the north and north-eastern parts of Bangladesh, with a maximum of 72 fl km-2 year-1. Spatially, the distribution of FRD increases from the Bay of Bengal in the south to relatively higher elevations (of the Himalayan foothills) in the north. A spatial shift in FRD hotspots occurs with change in season. For example, in monsoon season, hotspots of lightning activity move in a south-westerly direction from their pre-monsoon location (i.e. north-eastern Bangladesh) towards West Bengal in India. South and south-eastern parts of Bangladesh experience high lightning activity during post-monsoon season due to regional orographic lifting and low-pressure systems (i.e. cyclone) in the Bay of Bengal. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study focused on LIS-based lightning climatology over Bangladesh. This baseline study, therefore, is an essential first step towards effective management of lightning-related hazards in Bangladesh.

The climatology of the Red Sea - part 2: the waves

KAUST Repository

Langodan, Sabique; Cavaleri, Luigi; Pomaro, Angela; Vishwanadhapalli, Yesubabu; Bertotti, Luciana; Hoteit, Ibrahim

2017-01-01

The wave climatology of the Red Sea is described based on a 30-year hindcast generated using WAVEWATCH III configured on a 5-km resolution grid and forced by Red Sea reanalysis surface winds from the advanced Weather Research and Forecasting model

Direct and semi-direct effects of aerosol climatologies on long-term climate simulations over Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Schultze, Markus; Rockel, Burkhardt

2017-08-01

This study compares the direct and semi-direct aerosol effects of different annual cycles of tropospheric aerosol loads for Europe from 1950 to 2009 using the regional climate model COSMO-CLM, which is laterally forced by reanalysis data and run using prescribed, climatological aerosol optical properties. These properties differ with respect to the analysis strategy and the time window, and are then used for the same multi-decadal period. Five simulations with different aerosol loads and one control simulation without any tropospheric aerosols are integrated and compared. Two common limitations of our simulation strategy, to fully assess direct and semi-direct aerosol effects, are the applied observed sea surface temperatures and sea ice conditions, and the lack of short-term variations in the aerosol load. Nevertheless, the impact of different aerosol climatologies on common regional climate model simulations can be assessed. The results of all aerosol-including simulations show a distinct reduction in solar irradiance at the surface compared with that in the control simulation. This reduction is strongest in the summer season and is balanced primarily by a weakening of turbulent heat fluxes and to a lesser extent by a decrease in longwave emissions. Consequently, the seasonal mean surface cooling is modest. The temperature profile responses are characterized by a shallow near-surface cooling and a dominant warming up to the mid-troposphere caused by aerosol absorption. The resulting stabilization of stratification leads to reduced cloud cover and less precipitation. A decrease in cloud water and ice content over Central Europe in summer possibly reinforce aerosol absorption and thus strengthen the vertical warming. The resulting radiative forcings are positive. The robustness of the results was demonstrated by performing a simulation with very strong aerosol forcing, which lead to qualitatively similar results. A distinct added value over the default aerosol

Precipitation in a warming world: Assessing projected hydro-climate changes in California and other Mediterranean climate regions.

Science.gov (United States)

Polade, Suraj D; Gershunov, Alexander; Cayan, Daniel R; Dettinger, Michael D; Pierce, David W

2017-09-07

In most Mediterranean climate (MedClim) regions around the world, global climate models (GCMs) consistently project drier futures. In California, however, projections of changes in annual precipitation are inconsistent. Analysis of daily precipitation in 30 GCMs reveals patterns in projected hydrometeorology over each of the five MedClm regions globally and helps disentangle their causes. MedClim regions, except California, are expected to dry via decreased frequency of winter precipitation. Frequencies of extreme precipitation, however, are projected to increase over the two MedClim regions of the Northern Hemisphere where projected warming is strongest. The increase in heavy and extreme precipitation is particularly robust over California, where it is only partially offset by projected decreases in low-medium intensity precipitation. Over the Mediterranean Basin, however, losses from decreasing frequency of low-medium-intensity precipitation are projected to dominate gains from intensifying projected extreme precipitation. MedClim regions are projected to become more sub-tropical, i.e. made dryer via pole-ward expanding subtropical subsidence. California's more nuanced hydrological future reflects a precarious balance between the expanding subtropical high from the south and the south-eastward extending Aleutian low from the north-west. These dynamical mechanisms and thermodynamic moistening of the warming atmosphere result in increased horizontal water vapor transport, bolstering extreme precipitation events.

Climatological Factors Affecting Electromagnetic Surface Ducting in the Aegean Sea Region

Science.gov (United States)

2012-03-01

low precipitation, and northeasterly winds, all due to changes in large scale circulations and a northward shift in extratropical storm tracks. The...differences over the Aegean region, that are governed by large-scale climate factors. a. Winter During winter, the Aegean area is subject to extratropical ... extratropical cyclones from entering the Aegean region, while opposite shifts can 18 allow extratropical cyclones to more frequently enter the Aegean

Borneo Vortices: A case study and its relation to climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Braesicke, P.; Ooi, S. H.; Samah, A. A.

2012-04-01

Borneo vortices (BVs) develop over the South China Sea and are main drivers for the formation of deep convection and heavy rainfall in East Malaysia. We present a case study of a cold-surge-induced BV during January 2010 in which the export of potential energy lead to a strengthening of the subtropical jet. Potential vorticity (PV) and water vapour analyses confirm a significant impact of the BV on upper tropospheric composition. Dry, high PV air is found far below 100 hPa in the vicinty of the vortex. Using a PV threshold analysis of ERA-Interim data we construct a climatological composite of similar events and characterise the thermal, dynamical and composition structure of a 'typical' BV. We note the preferential formation of BVs during ENSO cold conditions and show that two effects contribute to the formation of the dry upper layer above a BV: Air is vertically transported upwards in the BV whilst precipitating and the large scale flow in which the BV is embedded advect dry, ozone rich air from the equatorial TTL over the BV. Thus the occurence frequency of BVs is important for the regional variability of upper tropospheric/lower stratospheric composition.

The climatology of the Red Sea - part 2: the waves

KAUST Repository

Langodan, Sabique

2017-05-09

The wave climatology of the Red Sea is described based on a 30-year hindcast generated using WAVEWATCH III configured on a 5-km resolution grid and forced by Red Sea reanalysis surface winds from the advanced Weather Research and Forecasting model. The wave simulations have been validated using buoy and altimeter data. The four main wind systems in the Red Sea characterize the corresponding wave climatology. The dominant ones are the two opposite wave systems with different genesis, propagating along the axis of the basin. The highest waves are generated at the centre of the Red Sea as a consequence of the strong seasonal winds blowing from the Tokar Gap on the African side. There is a general long-term trend toward lowering the values of the significant wave height over the whole basin, with a decreasing rate depending on the genesis of the individual systems.

Capturing subregional variability in regional-scale climate change vulnerability assessments of natural resources

Science.gov (United States)

Polly C. Buotte; David L. Peterson; Kevin S. McKelvey; Jeffrey A. Hicke

2016-01-01

Natural resource vulnerability to climate change can depend on the climatology and ecological conditions at a particular site. Here we present a conceptual framework for incorporating spatial variability in natural resource vulnerability to climate change in a regional-scale assessment. The framework was implemented in the first regional-scale vulnerability...

[An Archive for Science, State and Nation : Climatological Data Practices in Switzerland, 1860-1914].

Science.gov (United States)

Hupfer, Franziska

2017-12-01

In the second half of the nineteenth century, most European countries began to finance weather observation networks. As a result, climatological data practices changed fundamentally. Using the example of Switzerland, this paper examines the political, institutional and methodological dimensions of national data archives. The institutionalization of data collection within the national framework meant, on the one hand, that more observations were systematically made and published. On the other hand, it also meant that the monitoring was connected to state boundaries. However, based on their universalistic conception of science, this did not preclude national institutions from striving for international data standardization. The national framework also shaped the process of transforming weather observations into statistical data. This information formed the basis for national climatographies and thus had a nation-building effect. According to the Swiss Meteorological Institute, climate data were practically useful and had great potential for research work. However, the epistemic status of data collection was uncertain, since physical approaches to climatology had gained in importance. The anticipation of scientific and practical potential benefits played a central role for the continuation of data production. The Swiss case study presented here illustrates that climatology was transformed by the process of nation-building, affecting its institutional structure, spatial references, and epistemology.

A comparison of metrics for assessing state-of-the-art climate models and implications for probabilistic projections of climate change

Science.gov (United States)

Ring, Christoph; Pollinger, Felix; Kaspar-Ott, Irena; Hertig, Elke; Jacobeit, Jucundus; Paeth, Heiko

2018-03-01

A major task of climate science are reliable projections of climate change for the future. To enable more solid statements and to decrease the range of uncertainty, global general circulation models and regional climate models are evaluated based on a 2 × 2 contingency table approach to generate model weights. These weights are compared among different methodologies and their impact on probabilistic projections of temperature and precipitation changes is investigated. Simulated seasonal precipitation and temperature for both 50-year trends and climatological means are assessed at two spatial scales: in seven study regions around the globe and in eight sub-regions of the Mediterranean area. Overall, 24 models of phase 3 and 38 models of phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project altogether 159 transient simulations of precipitation and 119 of temperature from four emissions scenarios are evaluated against the ERA-20C reanalysis over the 20th century. The results show high conformity with previous model evaluation studies. The metrics reveal that mean of precipitation and both temperature mean and trend agree well with the reference dataset and indicate improvement for the more recent ensemble mean, especially for temperature. The method is highly transferrable to a variety of further applications in climate science. Overall, there are regional differences of simulation quality, however, these are less pronounced than those between the results for 50-year mean and trend. The trend results are suitable for assigning weighting factors to climate models. Yet, the implications for probabilistic climate projections is strictly dependent on the region and season.

Renewable Resources: a national catalog of model projects. Volume 2. Mid-American Solar Energy Complex Region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

1980-07-01

This compilation of diverse conservation and renewable energy projects across the United States was prepared through the enthusiastic participation of solar and alternate energy groups from every state and region. Compiled and edited by the Center for Renewable Resources, these projects reflect many levels of innovation and technical expertise. In many cases, a critique analysis is presented of how projects performed and of the institutional conditions associated with their success or failure. Some 2000 projects are included in this compilation; most have worked, some have not. Information about all is presented to aid learning from these experiences. The four volumes in this set are arranged in state sections by geographic region, coinciding with the four Regional Solar Energy Centers. The table of contents is organized by project category so that maximum cross-referencing may be obtained. This volume includes information on the Mid-American Solar Energy Complex Region. (WHK)

Average regional end-use energy price projections to the year 2030

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1991-01-01

The energy prices shown in this report cover the period from 1991 through 2030. These prices reflect sector/fuel price projections from the Annual Energy Outlook 1991 (AEO) base case, developed using the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) Intermediate Future Forecasting System (IFFS) forecasting model. Projections through 2010 are AEO base case forecasts. Projections for the period from 2011 through 2030 were developed separately from the AEO for this report, and the basis for these projections is described in Chapter 3. Projections in this report include average energy prices for each of four Census Regions for the residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation end-use sectors. Energy sources include electricity, distillate fuel oil, liquefied petroleum gas, motor gasoline, residual fuel oil, natural gas, and steam coal. (VC)

SST Anomaly, NOAA POES AVHRR, Casey and Cornillon Climatology, 0.1 degrees, Global

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — NOAA CoastWatch distributes SST anomaly data using a combination of the POES AVHRR Global Area Coverage data, and data from a climatological database by Casey and...

The influence of inter-annually varying albedo on regional climate and drought

KAUST Repository

Meng, Xianhong; Evans, Jason P.; McCabe, Matthew

2013-01-01

Albedo plays an important role in land-atmosphere interactions and local climate. This study presents the impact on simulating regional climate, and the evolution of a drought, when using the default climatological albedo as is usually done

The Increasing Use of Remote Sensing Data in Studying the Climatological Impacts on Public Health

Science.gov (United States)

Kempler, Steven; Benedict, Karl; Ceccato, Pietro; Golden, Meredith; Maxwell, Susan; Morian, Stan; Soebiyanto, Radina; Tong, Daniel

2011-01-01

One of the more fortunate outcomes of the capture and transformation of remote sensing data into applied information is their usefulness and impacts to better understanding climatological impacts on public health. Today, with petabytes of remote sensing data providing global coverage of climatological parameters, public health research and policy decision makers have an unprecedented (and growing) data record that relates the effects of climatic parameters, such as rainfall, heat, soil moisture, etc. to incidences and spread of disease, as well as predictive modeling. In addition, tools and services that specifically serve public health researchers and respondents have grown in response to needs of the these information users.

Seasonal Climatologies and Variability of Eastern Tropical Pacific Surface Waters

OpenAIRE

Fiedler, Paul C.

1992-01-01

Interannual variability caused by the El Nino-Southern Oscillation in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean (ETP) is analogous to seasonal variability of comparable magnitude. Climatological spatial patterns and seasonal variability of physical variables that may affect the ETP ecosystem are presented and discussed. Surface temperature, surface salinity, mixed layer depth, thermocline depth, thermocline strength, and surface dynamic height were derived from bathythermograph, hydrocast, and...

A climatology of polar stratospheric cloud composition between 2002 and 2012 based on MIPAS/Envisat observations

Science.gov (United States)

Spang, Reinhold; Hoffmann, Lars; Müller, Rolf; Grooß, Jens-Uwe; Tritscher, Ines; Höpfner, Michael; Pitts, Michael; Orr, Andrew; Riese, Martin

2018-04-01

The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) instrument aboard the European Space Agency (ESA) Envisat satellite operated from July 2002 to April 2012. The infrared limb emission measurements provide a unique dataset of day and night observations of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) up to both poles. A recent classification method for PSC types in infrared (IR) limb spectra using spectral measurements in different atmospheric window regions has been applied to the complete mission period of MIPAS. The method uses a simple probabilistic classifier based on Bayes' theorem with a strong independence assumption on a combination of a well-established two-colour ratio method and multiple 2-D probability density functions of brightness temperature differences. The Bayesian classifier distinguishes between solid particles of ice, nitric acid trihydrate (NAT), and liquid droplets of supercooled ternary solution (STS), as well as mixed types. A climatology of MIPAS PSC occurrence and specific PSC classes has been compiled. Comparisons with results from the classification scheme of the spaceborne lidar Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) on the Cloud-Aerosol-Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite show excellent correspondence in the spatial and temporal evolution for the area of PSC coverage (APSC) even for each PSC class. Probability density functions of the PSC temperature, retrieved for each class with respect to equilibrium temperature of ice and based on coincident temperatures from meteorological reanalyses, are in accordance with the microphysical knowledge of the formation processes with respect to temperature for all three PSC types.This paper represents unprecedented pole-covering day- and nighttime climatology of the PSC distributions and their composition of different particle types. The dataset allows analyses on the temporal and spatial development of the PSC formation process over

A climatology of polar stratospheric cloud composition between 2002 and 2012 based on MIPAS/Envisat observations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Spang

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS instrument aboard the European Space Agency (ESA Envisat satellite operated from July 2002 to April 2012. The infrared limb emission measurements provide a unique dataset of day and night observations of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs up to both poles. A recent classification method for PSC types in infrared (IR limb spectra using spectral measurements in different atmospheric window regions has been applied to the complete mission period of MIPAS. The method uses a simple probabilistic classifier based on Bayes' theorem with a strong independence assumption on a combination of a well-established two-colour ratio method and multiple 2-D probability density functions of brightness temperature differences. The Bayesian classifier distinguishes between solid particles of ice, nitric acid trihydrate (NAT, and liquid droplets of supercooled ternary solution (STS, as well as mixed types. A climatology of MIPAS PSC occurrence and specific PSC classes has been compiled. Comparisons with results from the classification scheme of the spaceborne lidar Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP on the Cloud-Aerosol-Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO satellite show excellent correspondence in the spatial and temporal evolution for the area of PSC coverage (APSC even for each PSC class. Probability density functions of the PSC temperature, retrieved for each class with respect to equilibrium temperature of ice and based on coincident temperatures from meteorological reanalyses, are in accordance with the microphysical knowledge of the formation processes with respect to temperature for all three PSC types.This paper represents unprecedented pole-covering day- and nighttime climatology of the PSC distributions and their composition of different particle types. The dataset allows analyses on the temporal and spatial development of the PSC formation

Assessment of CORDEX-South Asia experiments for monsoonal precipitation over Himalayan region for future climate

Science.gov (United States)

Choudhary, A.; Dimri, A. P.

2018-04-01

Precipitation is one of the important climatic indicators in the global climate system. Probable changes in monsoonal (June, July, August and September; hereafter JJAS) mean precipitation in the Himalayan region for three different greenhouse gas emission scenarios (i.e. representative concentration pathways or RCPs) and two future time slices (near and far) are estimated from a set of regional climate simulations performed under Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment-South Asia (CORDEX-SA) project. For each of the CORDEX-SA simulations and their ensemble, projections of near future (2020-2049) and far future (2070-2099) precipitation climatology with respect to corresponding present climate (1970-2005) over Himalayan region are presented. The variability existing over each of the future time slices is compared with the present climate variability to determine the future changes in inter annual fluctuations of monsoonal mean precipitation. The long-term (1970-2099) trend (mm/day/year) of monsoonal mean precipitation spatially distributed as well as averaged over Himalayan region is analyzed to detect any change across twenty-first century as well as to assess model uncertainty in simulating the precipitation changes over this period. The altitudinal distribution of difference in trend of future precipitation from present climate existing over each of the time slices is also studied to understand any elevation dependency of change in precipitation pattern. Except for a part of the Hindu-Kush area in western Himalayan region which shows drier condition, the CORDEX-SA experiments project in general wetter/drier conditions in near future for western/eastern Himalayan region, a scenario which gets further intensified in far future. Although, a gradually increasing precipitation trend is seen throughout the twenty-first century in carbon intensive scenarios, the distribution of trend with elevation presents a very complex picture with lower elevations

Aerosol climatology using a tunable spectral variability cloud screening of AERONET data

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufman, Yoram J.; Gobbi, Gian Paolo; Koren, Ilan

2005-01-01

Can cloud screening of an aerosol data set, affect the aerosol optical thickness (AOT) climatology? Aerosols, humidity and clouds are correlated. Therefore, rigorous cloud screening can systematically bias towards less cloudy conditions, underestimating the average AOT. Here, using AERONET data we show that systematic rejection of variable atmospheric optical conditions can generate such bias in the average AOT. Therefore we recommend (1) to introduce more powerful spectral variability cloud screening and (2) to change the philosophy behind present aerosol climatologies: Instead of systematically rejecting all cloud contaminations, we suggest to intentionally allow the presence of cloud contamination, estimate the statistical impact of the contamination and correct for it. The analysis, applied to 10 AERONET stations with approx. 4 years of data, shows almost no change for Rome (Italy), but up to a change in AOT of 0.12 in Beijing (PRC). Similar technique may be explored for satellite analysis, e.g. MODIS.

Fundamentals and new aspects of climatology. Grundlagen und neue Aspekte der Klimatologie

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schoenwiese, C D

1988-01-01

The submitted lecture notes comply with the students' wish for a guide of the introductory lecture on general climatology (Department of Geosciences at the University of Frankfurt). It substitutes a text book by no means, but on the contrary it is intended to bring the students to work up and complement the topics in literature, which are dealt with extremely briefly and in a few examples. Nevertheless the attempt was made not only to mention the most important basic facts, but also to introduce the important new aspects of climatology. This includes new terms (e.g. climatic system), newly observed phenomena (e.g. El Nino), new concepts (especially climatic model calculations) and not least new forms of understanding the processes of climate fluctuations and anthropogenic climate modification. In this respect, too, the lecture notes do not go beyond the intention of a guide which merely points out the topics without going into detail. (orig./KW) With 55 figs., 11 tabs.

Gas Regional Initiative. North West Regional Energy Market. Transmission Transparency Project. First Implementation Report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2008-07-01

The purpose of this report is to comment on the implementation of the TSO Transmission Transparency Project. In December 2007 sixteen TSOs presented a project plan which committed them to publishing information on capacity availability and gas flows at crossborder interconnection points in the North-West gas region. The data types to be published were agreed between TSOs and network users. It was agreed that TSOs would release new information on capacity and actual gas flows at crossborder interconnection points. The TSOs have committed to publishing the agreed information by three project milestones May, September or December 2008. At the end of May 2008 the TSOs submitted initial data to Ofgem (Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets) on implementation. This report presents the data submitted by the TSOs, provides comment on implementation progress and explains the next steps. This report does not approve or guarantee the accuracy of the data submitted by TSOs

Booming Asia-Pacific oil trade spawns regional storage projects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Land, R.

1992-01-01

This paper reports that surging oil trade in the Asia-Pacific region is spawning a number of big petroleum storage projects there. Among the biggest are those in Indonesia and Singapore. A group led by Singapore's Sembawang Group plans to build a $272 million (Singapore) oil storage terminal on Karimun Island in Riau province, Indonesia. Other participants include Kuo International, Hong Kong, and likely companies from Japan, Europe, and the U.S. According to press reports from Jakarta and Singapore, Van Ommeren Terminals of Netherlands was also reportedly involved in negotiations on the projects. A joint venture agreement was expected to be signed by the third quarter. Plans call for building a terminal with a capacity of 1.5 million cu m on the island, where Sembawang has a 100 year lease. Ultimately, Sembawang and Indonesian company Bangun Cipta want to develop the site as an industrial city with petrochemical plants, engineering and manufacturing industries, and shipyards. Semabawang Project Engineering recently completed a feasibility study of the Karimun storage project

Biomass Burning Smoke Climatology of the United States: Implications for Particulate Matter Air Quality.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaulfus, Aaron S; Nair, Udaysankar; Jaffe, Daniel; Christopher, Sundar A; Goodrick, Scott

2017-10-17

We utilize the NOAA Hazard Mapping System smoke product for the period of 2005 to 2016 to develop climatology of smoke occurrence over the Continental United States (CONUS) region and to study the impact of wildland fires on particulate matter air quality at the surface. Our results indicate that smoke is most frequently found over the Great Plains and western states during the summer months. Other hotspots of smoke occurrence are found over state and national parks in the southeast during winter and spring, in the Gulf of Mexico southwards of the Texas and Louisiana coastline during spring season and along the Mississippi River Delta during the fall season. A substantial portion (20%) of the 24 h federal standard for particulate pollution exceedance events in the CONUS region occur when smoke is present. If the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations continue to reduce anthropogenic emissions, wildland fire emissions will become the major contributor to particulate pollution and exceedance events. In this context, we show that HMS smoke product is a valuable tool for analysis of exceptional events caused by wildland fires and our results indicate that these tools can be valuable for policy and decision makers.

On the daily cycle of the climatological variables in the Municipality of Quibdo

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pabon, Jose Daniel; Reiner Palomino Lemus; William Murillo Lopez

2005-01-01

We analyzed the daily cycle of the climatological variables (solar radiation, air temperature, atmospheric pressure, precipitation and wind) in Quibdo, (5.45 degrades N and 76.39 degrades W, 53m), department of Choco. The analysis is based on hourly data recorded during the period 2000-2004 at the meteorological and radiometric station of the technological university of Choco, Diego Luis Cordoba (UTCH). It is shown that the daily cycle of the climatological variables in the city of Quibdo is typical of the tropical areas and the particularities of the daily pattern of precipitation were found: most of the rains occur during the evening. The seasonal variation of the daily cycle was also established. Finally, an approximation was made to the analyses of the effect of extreme phases of inter annual climate variability associated to El Nino and la Nina

The Mediterranean Solar Plan: Project proposals for renewable energy in the Mediterranean Partner Countries region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jablonski, Sophie; Tarhini, Mohamad; Touati, Manaf; Gonzalez Garcia, David; Alario, Juan

2012-01-01

This paper presents a first assessment of the renewable energy projects, proposed by the nine Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs) under the Mediterranean Solar Plan (MSP) and the associated potential economic impacts. As one of the priority projects of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), the MSP's objective which attracted most attention until now is the intention to deploy an additional 20 GW of renewable electrical capacity in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region (covering the MPCs plus Turkey) by 2020. The main findings of this research are: (1) as of February 2010, a total of 10.3 GW of renewable project proposals were identified in the MPCs, corresponding to about half of the 20 GW target; (2) investment needs for the identified projects could amount to EUR 21 billion by 2020, which represents about five times the amount invested by the region in conventional electricity generation in the last decade; and (3) the difference between the cost of renewable electricity generation and the economic cost of its fossil fuel alternatives could amount to EUR 1.2 billion. Insights stemming from the results of this research can generate useful regional messages for energy policy leaders in the MPCs to accelerate the development of renewable energy projects. - Highlights: ► We conducted a systematic survey of renewable energy projects in the Mediterranean. ► The identified projects correspond to half the MSP 20 GW target. ► Maturity assessment is used to classify the advancement of the projects. ► We estimated the investment needs and required subsidies in the region by 2020.

Health care networks implementation and regional governance challenges in the Legal Amazon Region: an analysis of the QualiSUS-Rede Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Casanova, Angela Oliveira; Cruz, Marly Marques; Giovanella, Ligia; Alves, Glaydes Dos Reis; Cardoso, Gisela Cordeiro Pereira

2017-04-01

This paper aims to analyze the potential, limits and challenges of regional governance in the implementation process of health care networks in three Brazilian regions: Alto Solimões (Amazonas), Belém (Pará) and an interstate region comprising Tocantins, Pará and Maranhão states (Topama). The study is based on the evaluation study on the implementation of the Quality Health Care Network Development and Improvement Project (QualiSUS-Rede). This is a qualitative multiple case study with the analysis of official documents and use of semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders conducted from July to December 2014. Governance review encompassed three components: stakeholders involved, especially local steering groups and their regional coordination capacity; strategies used for strengthening regional governance, anchored on the intervention's modeling; and implementation of local health care networks. Results point that the regional managing commissions were the main governance strategy and that the QualiSUS-Rede Project strengthened regional governance and integration differently in every case, depending on stakeholders' administration and consensus capacity on regional and political priorities.

Long-term aerosol climatology over Indo-Gangetic Plain: Trend, prediction and potential source fields

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, M.; Parmar, K. S.; Kumar, D. B.; Mhawish, A.; Broday, D. M.; Mall, R. K.; Banerjee, T.

2018-05-01

Long-term aerosol climatology is derived using Terra MODIS (Collection 6) enhanced Deep Blue (DB) AOD retrieval algorithm to investigate decadal trend (2006-2015) in columnar aerosol loading, future scenarios and potential source fields over the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), South Asia. Satellite based aerosol climatology was analyzed in two contexts: for the entire IGP considering area weighted mean AOD and for nine individual stations located at upper (Karachi, Multan, Lahore), central (Delhi, Kanpur, Varanasi, Patna) and lower IGP (Kolkata, Dhaka). A comparatively high aerosol loading (AOD: 0.50 ± 0.25) was evident over IGP with a statistically insignificant increasing trend of 0.002 year-1. Analysis highlights the existing spatial and temporal gradients in aerosol loading with stations over central IGP like Varanasi (decadal mean AOD±SD; 0.67 ± 0.28) and Patna (0.65 ± 0.30) exhibit the highest AOD, followed by stations over lower IGP (Kolkata: 0.58 ± 0.21; Dhaka: 0.60 ± 0.24), with a statistically significant increasing trend (0.0174-0.0206 year-1). In contrast, stations over upper IGP reveal a comparatively low aerosol loading, having an insignificant increasing trend. Variation in AOD across IGP is found to be mainly influenced by seasonality and topography. A distinct "aerosol pool" region over eastern part of Ganges plain is identified, where meteorology, topography, and aerosol sources favor the persistence of airborne particulates. A strong seasonality in aerosol loading and types is also witnessed, with high AOD and dominance of fine particulates over central to lower IGP, especially during post-monsoon and winter. The time series analyses by autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) indicate contrasting patterns in randomness of AOD over individual stations with better performance especially over central IGP. Concentration weighted trajectory analyses identify the crucial contributions of western dry regions and partial contributions from

Tribal Grant Program Area Polygons with Project Officer and Tribal Contact Information, US EPA Region 9, 2015, Regional Tribal Operations Committee

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This dataset contains information pertaining to EPA Region 9 project officers and their areas of oversight, EPA Region 9 grant program recipients and grant types,...

Characterization of soil droughts in France and climate change. The ClimSec project: results and applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Soubeyroux, Jean-Michel; Blanchard, Michele; Dandin, Philippe; Kitova, Nadia; Martin, Eric; Vidal, Jean-Philippe

2012-01-01

The ClimSec project has studied the impact of climate change on drought and soil water over France by using a climatological reanalysis of the SAFRAN/ISBA/MODCOU suite (SIM) since 1958. Standardized drought indices for precipitation (SPI) and soil moisture (SSWI) have been defined for research purposes to characterize the various kinds of events. They were then adapted for operational hydrological monitoring and used to assess the exceptional drought of spring 2011. These indices were also calculated for future climate from the various regionalized climate projections available over France. Three particular experiments in socio-economic scenarios, climate models and down-scaling methods have been run to estimate the relative importance of the different uncertainties in drought evolution. The assessment of 21. century drought evolution shows a much earlier and more intense occurrence of changes for agricultural droughts linked to soil moisture deficits than for meteorological drought linked with precipitation deficits. Climate projections suggest that France could be affected on the second half of the 21. century by a quasi-continuous drought with a strong intensity, totally unknown in present climate. (authors)

First Evaluation of the Climatological Calibration Algorithm in the Real-time TMPA Precipitation Estimates over Two Basins at High and Low Latitudes

Science.gov (United States)

Yong, Bin; Ren, Liliang; Hong, Yang; Gourley, Jonathan; Tian, Yudong; Huffman, George J.; Chen, Xi; Wang, Weiguang; Wen, Yixin

2013-01-01

The TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) system underwent a crucial upgrade in early 2009 to include a climatological calibration algorithm (CCA) to its realtime product 3B42RT, and this algorithm will continue to be applied in the future Global Precipitation Measurement era constellation precipitation products. In this study, efforts are focused on the comparison and validation of the Version 6 3B42RT estimates before and after the climatological calibration is applied. The evaluation is accomplished using independent rain gauge networks located within the high-latitude Laohahe basin and the low-latitude Mishui basin, both in China. The analyses indicate the CCA can effectively reduce the systematic errors over the low-latitude Mishui basin but misrepresent the intensity distribution pattern of medium-high rain rates. This behavior could adversely affect TMPA's hydrological applications, especially for extreme events (e.g., floods and landslides). Results also show that the CCA tends to perform slightly worse, in particular, during summer and winter, over the high-latitude Laohahe basin. This is possibly due to the simplified calibration-processing scheme in the CCA that directly applies the climatological calibrators developed within 40 degrees latitude to the latitude belts of 40 degrees N-50 degrees N. Caution should therefore be exercised when using the calibrated 3B42RT for heavy rainfall-related flood forecasting (or landslide warning) over high-latitude regions, as the employment of the smooth-fill scheme in the CCA bias correction could homogenize the varying rainstorm characteristics. Finally, this study highlights that accurate detection and estimation of snow at high latitudes is still a challenging task for the future development of satellite precipitation retrievals.

Long-term dust climatology in the western United States reconstructed from routine aerosol ground monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. Q. Tong

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This study introduces an observation-based dust identification approach and applies it to reconstruct long-term dust climatology in the western United States. Long-term dust climatology is important for quantifying the effects of atmospheric aerosols on regional and global climate. Although many routine aerosol monitoring networks exist, it is often difficult to obtain dust records from these networks, because these monitors are either deployed far away from dust active regions (most likely collocated with dense population or contaminated by anthropogenic sources and other natural sources, such as wildfires and vegetation detritus. Here we propose an approach to identify local dust events relying solely on aerosol mass and composition from general-purpose aerosol measurements. Through analyzing the chemical and physical characteristics of aerosol observations during satellite-detected dust episodes, we select five indicators to be used to identify local dust records: (1 high PM₁₀ concentrations; (2 low PM_2.5/PM₁₀ ratio; (3 higher concentrations and percentage of crustal elements; (4 lower percentage of anthropogenic pollutants; and (5 low enrichment factors of anthropogenic elements. After establishing these identification criteria, we conduct hierarchical cluster analysis for all validated aerosol measurement data over 68 IMPROVE sites in the western United States. A total of 182 local dust events were identified over 30 of the 68 locations from 2000 to 2007. These locations are either close to the four US Deserts, namely the Great Basin Desert, the Mojave Desert, the Sonoran Desert, and the Chihuahuan Desert, or in the high wind power region (Colorado. During the eight-year study period, the total number of dust events displays an interesting four-year activity cycle (one in 2000–2003 and the other in 2004–2007. The years of 2003, 2002 and 2007 are the three most active dust periods, with 46, 31 and 24

Regional absolute conductivity reconstruction using projected current density in MREIT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sajib, Saurav Z K; Kim, Hyung Joong; Woo, Eung Je; Kwon, Oh In

2012-01-01

Magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) is a non-invasive technique for imaging the internal conductivity distribution in tissue within an MRI scanner, utilizing the magnetic flux density, which is introduced when a current is injected into the tissue from external electrodes. This magnetic flux alters the MRI signal, so that appropriate reconstruction can provide a map of the additional z-component of the magnetic field (B z ) as well as the internal current density distribution that created it. To extract the internal electrical properties of the subject, including the conductivity and/or the current density distribution, MREIT techniques use the relationship between the external injection current and the z-component of the magnetic flux density B = (B x , B y , B z ). The tissue studied typically contains defective regions, regions with a low MRI signal and/or low MRI signal-to-noise-ratio, due to the low density of nuclear magnetic resonance spins, short T 2 or T* 2 relaxation times, as well as regions with very low electrical conductivity, through which very little current traverses. These defective regions provide noisy B z data, which can severely degrade the overall reconstructed conductivity distribution. Injecting two independent currents through surface electrodes, this paper proposes a new direct method to reconstruct a regional absolute isotropic conductivity distribution in a region of interest (ROI) while avoiding the defective regions. First, the proposed method reconstructs the contrast of conductivity using the transversal J-substitution algorithm, which blocks the propagation of severe accumulated noise from the defective region to the ROI. Second, the proposed method reconstructs the regional projected current density using the relationships between the internal current density, which stems from a current injection on the surface, and the measured B z data. Combining the contrast conductivity distribution in the entire imaging

Derivation of Tropospheric Ozone Climatology and Trends from TOMS Data

Science.gov (United States)

Newchurch, Michael J.; McPeters, Rich; Logan, Jennifer; Kim, Jae-Hwan

2002-01-01

This research addresses the following three objectives: (1) Derive tropospheric ozone columns from the TOMS instruments by computing the difference between total-ozone columns over cloudy areas and over clear areas in the tropics; (2) Compute secular trends in Nimbus-7 derived tropospheric Ozone column amounts and associated potential trends in the decadal-scale tropical cloud climatology; (3) Explain the occurrence of anomalously high ozone retrievals over high ice clouds.

Extreme climate in China. Facts, simulation and projection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Hui-Jun; Sun, Jian-Qi; Chen, Huo-Po; Zhu, Ya-Li; Zhang, Ying; Jiang, Da-Bang; Lang, Xian-Mei; Fan, Ke; Yu, En-Tao [Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing (China). Inst. of Atmospheric Physics; Yang, Song [NOAA Climate Prediction Center, Camp Springs, MD (United States)

2012-06-15

In this paper, studies on extreme climate in China including extreme temperature and precipitation, dust weather activity, tropical cyclone activity, intense snowfall and cold surge activity, floods, and droughts are reviewed based on the peer-reviewed publications in recent decades. The review is focused first on the climatological features, variability, and trends in the past half century and then on simulations and projections based on global and regional climate models. As the annual mean surface air temperature (SAT) increased throughout China, heat wave intensity and frequency overall increased in the past half century, with a large rate after the 1980s. The daily or yearly minimum SAT increased more significantly than the mean or maximum SAT. The long-term change in precipitation is predominantly characterized by the so-called southern flood and northern drought pattern in eastern China and by the overall increase over Northwest China. The interdecadal variation of monsoon, represented by the monsoon weakening in the end of 1970s, is largely responsible for this change in mean precipitation. Precipitation-related extreme events (e.g., heavy rainfall and intense snowfall) have become more frequent and intense generally over China in the recent years, with large spatial features. Dust weather activity, however, has become less frequent over northern China in the recent years, as result of weakened cold surge activity, reinforced precipitation, and improved vegetation condition. State-of-the-art climate models are capable of reproducing some features of the mean climate and extreme climate events. However, discrepancies among models in simulating and projecting the mean and extreme climate are also demonstrated by many recent studies. Regional models with higher resolutions often perform better than global models. To predict and project climate variations and extremes, many new approaches and schemes based on dynamical models, statistical methods, or their

A Statistical Model for Regional Tornado Climate Studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Jagger, Thomas H; Elsner, James B; Widen, Holly M

2015-01-01

Tornado reports are locally rare, often clustered, and of variable quality making it difficult to use them directly to describe regional tornado climatology. Here a statistical model is demonstrated that overcomes some of these difficulties and produces a smoothed regional-scale climatology of tornado occurrences. The model is applied to data aggregated at the level of counties. These data include annual population, annual tornado counts and an index of terrain roughness. The model has a term to capture the smoothed frequency relative to the state average. The model is used to examine whether terrain roughness is related to tornado frequency and whether there are differences in tornado activity by County Warning Area (CWA). A key finding is that tornado reports increase by 13% for a two-fold increase in population across Kansas after accounting for improvements in rating procedures. Independent of this relationship, tornadoes have been increasing at an annual rate of 1.9%. Another finding is the pattern of correlated residuals showing more Kansas tornadoes in a corridor of counties running roughly north to south across the west central part of the state consistent with the dryline climatology. The model is significantly improved by adding terrain roughness. The effect amounts to an 18% reduction in the number of tornadoes for every ten meter increase in elevation standard deviation. The model indicates that tornadoes are 51% more likely to occur in counties served by the CWAs of DDC and GID than elsewhere in the state. Flexibility of the model is illustrated by fitting it to data from Illinois, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Ohio.

Evaluating aggregate terrestrial impacts of road construction projects for advanced regional mitigation.

Science.gov (United States)

Thorne, James H; Girvetz, Evan H; McCoy, Michael C

2009-05-01

This study presents a GIS-based database framework used to assess aggregate terrestrial habitat impacts from multiple highway construction projects in California, USA. Transportation planners need such impact assessment tools to effectively address additive biological mitigation obligations. Such assessments can reduce costly delays due to protracted environmental review. This project incorporated the best available statewide natural resource data into early project planning and preliminary environmental assessments for single and multiple highway construction projects, and provides an assessment of the 10-year state-wide mitigation obligations for the California Department of Transportation. Incorporation of these assessments will facilitate early and more strategic identification of mitigation opportunities, for single-project and regional mitigation efforts. The data architecture format uses eight spatial scales: six nested watersheds, counties, and transportation planning districts, which were intersected. This resulted in 8058 map planning units statewide, which were used to summarize all subsequent analyses. Range maps and georeferenced locations of federally and state-listed plants and animals and a 55-class landcover map were spatially intersected with the planning units and the buffered spatial footprint of 967 funded projects. Projected impacts were summarized and output to the database. Queries written in the database can sum expected impacts and provide summaries by individual construction project, or by watershed, county, transportation district or highway. The data architecture allows easy incorporation of new information and results in a tool usable without GIS by a wide variety of agency biologists and planners. The data architecture format would be useful for other types of regional planning.

Evaluating Aggregate Terrestrial Impacts of Road Construction Projects for Advanced Regional Mitigation

Science.gov (United States)

Thorne, James H.; Girvetz, Evan H.; McCoy, Michael C.

2009-05-01

This study presents a GIS-based database framework used to assess aggregate terrestrial habitat impacts from multiple highway construction projects in California, USA. Transportation planners need such impact assessment tools to effectively address additive biological mitigation obligations. Such assessments can reduce costly delays due to protracted environmental review. This project incorporated the best available statewide natural resource data into early project planning and preliminary environmental assessments for single and multiple highway construction projects, and provides an assessment of the 10-year state-wide mitigation obligations for the California Department of Transportation. Incorporation of these assessments will facilitate early and more strategic identification of mitigation opportunities, for single-project and regional mitigation efforts. The data architecture format uses eight spatial scales: six nested watersheds, counties, and transportation planning districts, which were intersected. This resulted in 8058 map planning units statewide, which were used to summarize all subsequent analyses. Range maps and georeferenced locations of federally and state-listed plants and animals and a 55-class landcover map were spatially intersected with the planning units and the buffered spatial footprint of 967 funded projects. Projected impacts were summarized and output to the database. Queries written in the database can sum expected impacts and provide summaries by individual construction project, or by watershed, county, transportation district or highway. The data architecture allows easy incorporation of new information and results in a tool usable without GIS by a wide variety of agency biologists and planners. The data architecture format would be useful for other types of regional planning.

Sustainable manure management in the Baltic Sea Region - results, cases and project recommendations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tybirk, Knud; Luostarinen, S; Hamelin, Lorie

This magazine contains the major results, conclusions and recommendations of the project Baltic Forum for Innovative Technologies for Sustainable Manure Management (Baltic Manure) which via co-funding from Interreg Baltic Sea Region programme has been a Flagship project in the EU Strategy...

Interdependency in Multimodel Climate Projections: Component Replication and Result Similarity

Science.gov (United States)

Boé, Julien

2018-03-01

Multimodel ensembles are the main way to deal with model uncertainties in climate projections. However, the interdependencies between models that often share entire components make it difficult to combine their results in a satisfactory way. In this study, how the replication of components (atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea ice) between climate models impacts the proximity of their results is quantified precisely, in terms of climatological means and future changes. A clear relationship exists between the number of components shared by climate models and the proximity of their results. Even the impact of a single shared component is generally visible. These conclusions are true at both the global and regional scales. Given available data, it cannot be robustly concluded that some components are more important than others. Those results provide ways to estimate model interdependencies a priori rather than a posteriori based on their results, in order to define independence weights.

Steps Toward an EOS-Era Aerosol Type Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Kahn, Ralph A.

2012-01-01

We still have a way to go to develop a global climatology of aerosol type from the EOS-era satellite data record that currently spans more than 12 years of observations. We have demonstrated the ability to retrieve aerosol type regionally, providing a classification based on the combined constraints on particle size, shape, and single-scattering albedo (SSA) from the MISR instrument. Under good but not necessarily ideal conditions, the MISR data can distinguish three-to-five size bins, two-to-four bins in SSA, and spherical vs. non-spherical particles. However, retrieval sensitivity varies enormously with scene conditions. So, for example, there is less information about aerosol type when the mid-visible aerosol optical depth (AOD) is less that about 0.15 or 0.2, or when the range of scattering angles observed is reduced by solar geometry, even though the quality of the AOD retrieval itself is much less sensitive to these factors. This presentation will review a series of studies aimed at assessing the capabilities, as well as the limitations, of MISR aerosol type retrievals involving wildfire smoke, desert dust, volcanic ash, and urban pollution, in specific cases where suborbital validation data are available. A synthesis of results, planned upgrades to the MISR Standard aerosol algorithm to improve aerosol type retrievals, and steps toward the development of an aerosol type quality flag for the Standard product, will also be covered.

Changes in Surface Wind Speed over North America from CMIP5 Model Projections and Implications for Wind Energy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sujay Kulkarni

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The centennial trends in the surface wind speed over North America are deduced from global climate model simulations in the Climate Model Intercomparison Project—Phase 5 (CMIP5 archive. Using the 21st century simulations under the RCP 8.5 scenario of greenhouse gas emissions, 5–10 percent increases per century in the 10 m wind speed are found over Central and East-Central United States, the Californian Coast, and the South and East Coasts of the USA in winter. In summer, climate models projected decreases in the wind speed ranging from 5 to 10 percent per century over the same coastal regions. These projected changes in the surface wind speed are moderate and imply that the current estimate of wind power potential for North America based on present-day climatology will not be significantly changed by the greenhouse gas forcing in the coming decades.

The prevalence of headache in Greece: correlations to latitude and climatological factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Mitsikostas, D D; Tsaklakidou, D; Athanasiadis, N; Thomas, A

1996-03-01

A questionnaire study on headaches, using a door-to-door survey, was carried out in a representative sample of the general Greek population, including 1737 men and 1764 women, from 15 to 75 years of age. The parameters evaluated included age, sex, education, socioeconomic status, region of domicile, frequency of headache, use of medication, medical consultation, and family history. Latitude and climatologic factors such as humidity, temperature, and atmospheric pressure were also investigated. Headaches were not classified because the interviewers were not specialists. Nineteen percent of men and 40% of women (mean 29%) suffered from headaches in the prior year. Headaches were more frequent in lower social classes, in people with less education, and in those between 45 and 64 years of age. Nineteen percent of sufferers did not take any medication and 33% used medication every time that they had a headache, while 36% sought medical consultation. Twenty-nine percent of headache sufferers had a family history of headaches. Daily headache was present in 15% of headache sufferers. Humidity and atmospheric pressure were not correlated to headache frequency. However, in the northern areas of Greece, as well as in the regions with low mean temperature, more people suffered from daily headaches. These data may explain the lower 1-year prevalence of headaches in other Greece as compared to the prevalence of headaches in other northern European countries.

Forecasting Temporal and Spatial Climatological Influence for Land Suitability Evaluation in Bentota Sri Lanka

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gayani Ranasinghe

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Climate change has raised much concern regarding its impacts on future land use planning, varying by region, time, and socio-economic development path. The principle purpose of land suitability evaluation is to predict the potential and limitation of the land for crop production and other land uses. This study was carried out to predict the temperature and rainfall trends as one of the major factor for evaluating land suitability. Climatic data such as monthly mean temperature, total monthly rainfall, maximum daily rainfall and total annual rainfall during last 30 years of all weather stations located in Bentota River basin was collected and analyzed applying time series analysis, correlation analysis and Manna Kendall trend test methods. Spatial distribution of forecast rainfall values was illustrated applying Arc GIS software. The findings revealed that monthly mean temperature and maximum daily rainfall had a general increasing trend whereas, total monthly rainfall and total annual rainfall showed a general decreasing trend in  Bentota area. It was indicated relatively high rainfall situations during May and October while low rainfall situations during January and February by occurring flood situation in once per five year. During Yala season the area will be received comparatively more rainfall (331mm than Maha season (300mm in future. Community and the farmers in this area can be aware about the anticipated spatial distribution of total monthly rainfall during two major seasons and flood occurrence periods. Decision makers should evaluate land suitability of Bentota area by considering above climatological influences and its spatial distribution pattern that identified as major outcome of this research. The approach and the methodology adopted in this study will be useful for other researchers, agriculturalist and planners to identify the future climatological influences and its spatial distribution pattern for land suitability evaluations

The economic and social significance of RCA regional co-operative projects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fowler, E.E.

1979-01-01

The regional Co-operative Agreement for Research, Development and Training Related to Nuclear Science and Technology (RCA) is an established and valuable instrument between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Member States in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific or Far East for assisting in the transfer of modern technology to areas having economic and social importance to the region. The purpose of this review is to identify on-going or planned work which is designed to help achieve this goal. Currently approved RCA Regional Co-operative Research Projects are listed

Validation of precipitation over Japan during 1985-2004 simulated by three regional climate models and two multi-model ensemble means

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ishizaki, Yasuhiro [Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba (Japan); National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba (Japan); Nakaegawa, Toshiyuki; Takayabu, Izuru [Meteorological Research Institute, Tsukuba (Japan)

2012-07-15

We dynamically downscaled Japanese reanalysis data (JRA-25) for 60 regions of Japan using three regional climate models (RCMs): the Non-Hydrostatic Regional Climate Model (NHRCM), modified RAMS version 4.3 (NRAMS), and modified Weather Research and Forecasting model (TWRF). We validated their simulations of the precipitation climatology and interannual variations of summer and winter precipitation. We also validated precipitation for two multi-model ensemble means: the arithmetic ensemble mean (AEM) and an ensemble mean weighted according to model reliability. In the 60 regions NRAMS simulated both the winter and summer climatological precipitation better than JRA-25, and NHRCM simulated the wintertime precipitation better than JRA-25. TWRF, however, overestimated precipitation in the 60 regions in both the winter and summer, and NHRCM overestimated precipitation in the summer. The three RCMs simulated interannual variations, particularly summer precipitation, better than JRA-25. AEM simulated both climatological precipitation and interannual variations during the two seasons more realistically than JRA-25 and the three RCMs overall, but the best RCM was often superior to the AEM result. In contrast, the weighted ensemble mean skills were usually superior to those of the best RCM. Thus, both RCMs and multi-model ensemble means, especially multi-model ensemble means weighted according to model reliability, are powerful tools for simulating seasonal and interannual variability of precipitation in Japan under the current climate. (orig.)

Metrological challenges for measurements of key climatological observables: oceanic salinity and pH, and atmospheric humidity. Part 1: overview

Science.gov (United States)

Feistel, R.; Wielgosz, R.; Bell, S. A.; Camões, M. F.; Cooper, J. R.; Dexter, P.; Dickson, A. G.; Fisicaro, P.; Harvey, A. H.; Heinonen, M.; Hellmuth, O.; Kretzschmar, H.-J.; Lovell-Smith, J. W.; McDougall, T. J.; Pawlowicz, R.; Ridout, P.; Seitz, S.; Spitzer, P.; Stoica, D.; Wolf, H.

2016-02-01

Water in its three ambient phases plays the central thermodynamic role in the terrestrial climate system. Clouds control Earth’s radiation balance, atmospheric water vapour is the strongest ‘greenhouse’ gas, and non-equilibrium relative humidity at the air-sea interface drives evaporation and latent heat export from the ocean. On climatic time scales, melting ice caps and regional deviations of the hydrological cycle result in changes of seawater salinity, which in turn may modify the global circulation of the oceans and their ability to store heat and to buffer anthropogenically produced carbon dioxide. In this paper, together with three companion articles, we examine the climatologically relevant quantities ocean salinity, seawater pH and atmospheric relative humidity, noting fundamental deficiencies in the definitions of those key observables, and their lack of secure foundation on the International System of Units, the SI. The metrological histories of those three quantities are reviewed, problems with their current definitions and measurement practices are analysed, and options for future improvements are discussed in conjunction with the recent seawater standard TEOS-10. It is concluded that the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, BIPM, in cooperation with the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam, IAPWS, along with other international organizations and institutions, can make significant contributions by developing and recommending state-of-the-art solutions for these long standing metrological problems in climatology.

High-resolution multi-model projections of onshore wind resources over Portugal under a changing climate

Science.gov (United States)

Nogueira, Miguel; Soares, Pedro M. M.; Tomé, Ricardo; Cardoso, Rita M.

2018-05-01

We present a detailed evaluation of wind energy density (WED) over Portugal, based on the EURO-CORDEX database of high-resolution regional climate model (RCM) simulations. Most RCMs showed reasonable accuracy in reproducing the observed near-surface wind speed. The climatological patterns of WED displayed large sub-regional heterogeneity, with higher values over coastal regions and steep orography. Subsequently, we investigated the future changes of WED throughout the twenty-first century, considering mid- and end-century periods, and two emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). On the yearly average, the multi-model ensemble WED changes were below 10% (15%) under RCP4.5 (RCP8.5). However, the projected WED anomalies displayed strong seasonality, dominated by low positive values in summer (< 10% for both scenarios), negative values in winter and spring (up to - 10% (- 20%) under RCP4.5 (RCP8.5)), and stronger negative anomalies in autumn (up to - 25% (- 35%) under RCP4.5 (RCP8.5)). These projected WED anomalies displayed large sub-regional variability. The largest reductions (and lowest increases) are linked to the northern and central-eastern elevated terrain, and the southwestern coast. In contrast, the largest increases (and lowest reductions) are linked to the central-western orographic features of moderate elevation. The projections also showed changes in inter-annual variability of WED, with small increases for annual averages, but with distinct behavior when considering year-to-year variability over a specific season: small increases in winter, larger increases in summer, slight decrease in autumn, and no relevant change in spring. The changes in inter-annual variability also displayed strong dependence on the underlying terrain. Finally, we found significant model spread in the magnitude of projected WED anomalies and inter-annual variability, affecting even the signal of the changes.

The Global Climatology Network Precipitation data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peterson, T.C.; Easterling, D.R.; Eischeid, J.K.

1993-01-01

Several years ago, in response to growing concern about global climate change, the US National Climatic Data Center and the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center undertook an effort to create a baseline global land surface climate data set called the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN, Vose et al., 1992). GHCN was created by merging several large existing climate data sets into one data base. Fifteen separate data sets went into the creation of the GHCN version 1.0. GHCN version 1.0 was released in 1992. It has 7,533 precipitation stations, but the number of stations varies with time. A slight majority (55%) have records in excess of 50 years, and a significant proportion (13%) have records in excess of 100 years. The longest period of record for any given station is 291 years (1697--1987 for Kew, United Kingdom)

Modeling drought impact occurrence based on climatological drought indices for four European countries

Science.gov (United States)

Stagge, James H.; Kohn, Irene; Tallaksen, Lena M.; Stahl, Kerstin

2014-05-01

The relationship between atmospheric conditions and the likelihood of a significant drought impact has, in the past, been difficult to quantify, particularly in Europe where political boundaries and language have made acquiring comprehensive drought impact information difficult. As such, the majority of studies linking meteorological drought with the occurrence or severity of drought impacts have previously focused on specific regions, very detailed impact types, or both. This study describes a new methodology to link the likelihood of drought impact occurrence with climatological drought indices across different European climatic regions and impact sectors using the newly developed European Drought Impact report Inventory (EDII), a collaborative database of drought impact information (www.geo.uio.no/edc/droughtdb/). The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) are used as predictor variables to quantify meteorological drought severity over prior time periods (here 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 24 months are used). The indices are derived using the gridded WATCH Forcing Datasets, covering the period 1958-2012. Analysis was performed using logistic regression to identify the climatological drought index and accumulation period, or linear combination of drought indices, that best predicts the likelihood of a documented drought impact, defined by monthly presence/absence. The analysis was carried out for a subset of four European countries (Germany, UK, Norway, Slovenia) and four of the best documented impact sectors: Public Water Supply, Agriculture and Livestock Farming, Energy and Industry, and Environmental Quality. Preliminary results show that drought impacts in these countries occur most frequently due to a combination of short-term (2-6 month) precipitation deficits and long-term (12-24 month) potential evapotranspiration anomaly, likely associated with increased temperatures. Agricultural drought impacts

Some climatological factors of pine in the lake toba catchment area

Science.gov (United States)

Nasution, Z.

2018-02-01

The article deals with climatological factors of Pine at the Lake Toba Catchment Area also called drained basin, Pinus merkusii is a plant endemic in Sumatra. A central population of Pine in North Sumatra is located in the Tapanuli region to south of Lake Toba. Junghuhn discovered the species in the mountains range of Sipirok. He provisionally named the species as Pinus sumatrana. The article presents a detail analysis of approaches to climate factors, considers rainfall, air temperature, humidity, stemflow, throughfall and Interception following calculation of regression to determine relationship between precipitation with stemflow and interception. Stemflow, it is highly significant with significance of difference between correlation coefficients and z normal distribution. Temperature and relative humidity are the important components in the climate. These components influence the evaporation process and rainfall in the catchment. Pinus merkusii has the big crown interception. Stemflow and Interception has an opposite relation. Increasing of interception capacity will decrease stemflow. This type of Pine also has rough bark however significant channels so that, it flows water even during the wet season and caused the stemflow in Pinus merkusii relatively bigger.

Experiences with IAEA project: TC Regional Project on Quality Control and Quality Assurance for Nuclear Analytical Techniques (RER/2/004)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Glavic-Cindro, Denis; Korun, Matjaz

2002-01-01

In the TC Regional Project on Quality Control and Quality Assurance for Nuclear Analytical Techniques RER/2/004, 12 laboratories from east and central European countries participated. Within this project 4 workshops, 2 audit inspections and 2 proficiency tests were organized. The aim of this project was to help these laboratories to implement quality assurance system based on the ISO 17025 standard and to help them on the way towards accreditation. (author)

USDA/Regional Dairy Quality Management Alliance (RDQM) Project-2008 Report

Science.gov (United States)

The Regional Dairy Quality Management Alliance (RDQMA) research project has been underway for four years. We have so far been able to study best management practices on three dairy farms in the Northeast. ON these farms very precise data are collected with regard to the health status of the animals ...

A lightning climatology of the South-West Indian Ocean

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Bovalo

2012-08-01

Full Text Available The World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN data have been used to perform a lightning climatology in the South-West Indian Ocean (SWIO region from 2005 to 2011. Maxima of lightning activity were found in the Maritime Continent and southwest of Sri Lanka (>50 fl km⁻² yr⁻¹ but also over Madagascar and above the Great Lakes of East Africa (>10–20 fl km⁻² yr⁻¹. Lightning flashes within tropical storms and tropical cyclones represent 50 % to 100 % of the total lightning activity in some oceanic areas of the SWIO (between 10° S and 20° S.

The SWIO is characterized by a wet season (November to April and a dry season (May to October. As one could expect, lightning activity is more intense during the wet season as the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ is present over all the basin. Flash density is higher over land in November–December–January with values reaching 3–4 fl km⁻² yr⁻¹ over Madagascar. During the dry season, lightning activity is quite rare between 10° S and 25° S. The Mascarene anticyclone has more influence on the SWIO resulting in shallower convection. Lightning activity is concentrated over ocean, east of South Africa and Madagascar.

A statistical analysis has shown that El Niño–Southern Oscillation mainly modulates the lightning activity up to 56.8% in the SWIO. The Indian Ocean Dipole has a significant contribution since ~49% of the variability is explained by this forcing in some regions. The Madden–Julian Oscillation did not show significative impact on the lightning activity in our study.

Climate change projections over three metropolitan regions in Southeast Brazil using the non-hydrostatic Eta regional climate model at 5-km resolution

Science.gov (United States)

Lyra, Andre; Tavares, Priscila; Chou, Sin Chan; Sueiro, Gustavo; Dereczynski, Claudine; Sondermann, Marcely; Silva, Adan; Marengo, José; Giarolla, Angélica

2018-04-01

The objective of this work is to assess changes in three metropolitan regions of Southeast Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Santos) based on the projections produced by the Eta Regional Climate Model (RCM) at very high spatial resolution, 5 km. The region, which is densely populated and extremely active economically, is frequently affected by intense rainfall events that trigger floods and landslides during the austral summer. The analyses are carried out for the period between 1961 and 2100. The 5-km simulations are results from a second downscaling nesting in the HadGEM2-ES RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 simulations. Prior to the assessment of the projections, the higher resolution simulations were evaluated for the historical period (1961-1990). The comparison between the 5-km and the coarser driver model simulations shows that the spatial patterns of precipitation and temperature of the 5-km Eta simulations are in good agreement with the observations. The simulated frequency distribution of the precipitation and temperature extremes from the 5-km Eta RCM is consistent with the observed structure and extreme values. Projections of future climate change using the 5-km Eta runs show stronger warming in the region, primarily during the summer season, while precipitation is strongly reduced. Projected temperature extremes show widespread heating with maximum temperatures increasing by approximately 9 °C in the three metropolitan regions by the end of the century in the RCP8.5 scenario. A trend of drier climate is also projected using indices based on daily precipitation, which reaches annual rainfall reductions of more than 50 % in the state of Rio de Janeiro and between 40 and 45 % in São Paulo and Santos. The magnitude of these changes has negative implications to the population health conditions, energy security, and economy.

The NASA Severe Thunderstorm Observations and Regional Modeling (NASA STORM) Project

Science.gov (United States)

Schultz, Christopher J.; Gatlin, Patrick N.; Lang, Timothy J.; Srikishen, Jayanthi; Case, Jonathan L.; Molthan, Andrew L.; Zavodsky, Bradley T.; Bailey, Jeffrey; Blakeslee, Richard J.; Jedlovec, Gary J.

2016-01-01

The NASA Severe Storm Thunderstorm Observations and Regional Modeling(NASA STORM) project enhanced NASA’s severe weather research capabilities, building upon existing Earth Science expertise at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). During this project, MSFC extended NASA’s ground-based lightning detection capacity to include a readily deployable lightning mapping array (LMA). NASA STORM also enabled NASA’s Short-term Prediction and Research Transition (SPoRT) to add convection allowing ensemble modeling to its portfolio of regional numerical weather prediction (NWP) capabilities. As a part of NASA STORM, MSFC developed new open-source capabilities for analyzing and displaying weather radar observations integrated from both research and operational networks. These accomplishments enabled by NASA STORM are a step towards enhancing NASA’s capabilities for studying severe weather and positions them for any future NASA related severe storm field campaigns.

Global projections of 21st century land-use changes in regions adjacent to Protected Areas.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linda J Beaumont

Full Text Available The conservation efficiency of Protected Areas (PA is influenced by the health and characteristics of the surrounding landscape matrix. Fragmentation of adjacent lands interrupts ecological flows within PAs and will decrease the ability of species to shift their distribution as climate changes. For five periods across the 21(st century, we assessed changes to the extent of primary land, secondary land, pasture and crop land projected to occur within 50 km buffers surrounding IUCN-designated PAs. Four scenarios of land-use were obtained from the Land-Use Harmonization Project, developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5. The scenarios project the continued decline of primary lands within buffers surrounding PAs. Substantial losses are projected to occur across buffer regions in the tropical forest biomes of Indo-Malayan and the Temperate Broadleaf forests of the Nearctic. A number of buffer regions are projected to have negligible primary land remaining by 2100, including those in the Afrotropic's Tropical/Subtropical Grassland/Savanna/Shrubland. From 2010-2050, secondary land is projected to increase within most buffer regions, although, as with pasture and crops within tropical and temperate forests, projections from the four land-use scenarios may diverge substantially in magnitude and direction of change. These scenarios demonstrate a range of alternate futures, and show that although effective mitigation strategies may reduce pressure on land surrounding PAs, these areas will contain an increasingly heterogeneous matrix of primary and human-modified landscapes. Successful management of buffer regions will be imperative to ensure effectiveness of PAs and to facilitate climate-induced shifts in species ranges.

LIS/OTD 2.5 DEGREE LOW RESOLUTION DIURNAL CLIMATOLOGY (LRDC) V2.3.2014

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The product is a 2.5 deg x 2.5 deg gridded composite of climatological total (IC+CG) lightning bulk production as a function of local hour, expressed as a flash rate...

LIS/OTD 2.5 DEGREE LOW RESOLUTION ANNUAL CLIMATOLOGY (LRAC) V2.3.2013

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The product is a 2.5 deg x 2.5 deg gridded composite of climatological total (IC+CG) lightning bulk production as a function of day of year, expressed as a flash...

LIS/OTD 0.5 DEGREE HIGH RESOLUTION ANNUAL CLIMATOLOGY (HRAC) V2.3.2013

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The product is a 0.5 deg x 0.5 deg gridded composite of total (IC+CG) lightning bulk production, expressed as a flash density (fl/km2/yr). Climatologies from the OTD...

Advances in tourism climatology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Matzarakis, A.; Freitas, C.R. de; Scott, D. (eds.)

2004-11-01

This publication grew out of the Second International Workshop of the International Society of Biometeorology, Commission on Climate Tourism and Recreation (ISB-CCTR) that took place at the Orthodox Academy of Crete in Kolimbari, Greece, 8-11 June 2004. The aim of the meeting was to (a) bring together a selection of researchers and tourism experts to review the current state of knowledge of tourism and recreation climatology and (b) explore possibilities for future research and the role of the ISB-CCTR in this. A total of 40 delegates attended the June 2004 ISB-CCTR Workshop. Their fields of expertise included biometeorology, bioclimatology, thermal comfort and heat balance modelling, tourism marketing and planning, urban and landscape planning, architecture, climate change, emission reduction and climate change impact assessment. Participants came from universities and research institutions in Australia, Austria, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia, United Kingdom and United States of America. Business conducted at the Workshop was divided between five sessions: assessment of climatic resources; climate change; health; weather, sports and risk forecasts; and behaviour and perception. However, the content of this publication is organised so that it reflects the new perspectives and methods that have evolved since the ISB-CCTR was established. (orig.)

Black Sea Mixed Layer Sensitivity to Various Wind and Thermal Forcing Products on Climatological Time Scales

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Kara, A. B; Jurlburt, Harley; Wallcraft, Alan; Bourassa, Mark

2005-01-01

This study describes atmospheric forcing parameters constructed from different global climatologies, applied to the Black Sea, and investigates the sensitivity of HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM...

Long-term changes in climatological calendar

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jaagus, J.

1997-01-01

Trends in time series of climatic seasons in Tartu, Estonia, during 1891-1995 are analysed using regression analysis. Two intermediate seasons between autumn and winter (late autumn, early winter), and two ones between winter and spring (late winter and early spring) are determined. The climatic seasons correspond quite well to individual stages of annual cycling of nature. Results of linear regression analysis demonstrate changes in climatological calendar reflecting the influence of global warming. Climatic seasons of spring period have moved to earlier time, and seasons of autumn period to later time. Statistically significant trends were observed for beginning date of early spring (12 days earlier), summer (11 days earlier) and late autumn (8 days later). Beginning date of winter has shifted 12 days later. Duration of summer season has increased by two weeks and duration of winter season has decreased by the same time. (author)

Climatology of GNPs ionospheric scintillation at high and mid latitudes under different solar activity conditions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Spogli, L.; Alfonsi, L.; De Franceschi, G.; Romano, V.; Aquino, M.H.O.; Dodson, A.

2010-01-01

We analyze data of ionospheric scintillation over North European regions for the same period (October to November) of two different years (2003 and 2008), characterized by different geomagnetic conditions. The work aims to develop a scintillation climatology of the high- and mid-latitude ionosphere, analyzing the behaviour of the scintillation occurrence as a function of the magnetic local time (MLT) and of the altitude adjusted corrected magnetic latitude (M lat), to characterize scintillation scenarios under different solar activity conditions. The results shown herein are obtained merging observations from a network of GISTMs (GPS Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC Monitor) located over a wide range of latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Our findings confirm the associations of the occurrence of the ionospheric irregularities with the expected position of the auroral oval and of the ionospheric trough walls and show the contribution of the polar cap patches even under solar minimum conditions.

A Statistical Model for Regional Tornado Climate Studies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas H Jagger

Full Text Available Tornado reports are locally rare, often clustered, and of variable quality making it difficult to use them directly to describe regional tornado climatology. Here a statistical model is demonstrated that overcomes some of these difficulties and produces a smoothed regional-scale climatology of tornado occurrences. The model is applied to data aggregated at the level of counties. These data include annual population, annual tornado counts and an index of terrain roughness. The model has a term to capture the smoothed frequency relative to the state average. The model is used to examine whether terrain roughness is related to tornado frequency and whether there are differences in tornado activity by County Warning Area (CWA. A key finding is that tornado reports increase by 13% for a two-fold increase in population across Kansas after accounting for improvements in rating procedures. Independent of this relationship, tornadoes have been increasing at an annual rate of 1.9%. Another finding is the pattern of correlated residuals showing more Kansas tornadoes in a corridor of counties running roughly north to south across the west central part of the state consistent with the dryline climatology. The model is significantly improved by adding terrain roughness. The effect amounts to an 18% reduction in the number of tornadoes for every ten meter increase in elevation standard deviation. The model indicates that tornadoes are 51% more likely to occur in counties served by the CWAs of DDC and GID than elsewhere in the state. Flexibility of the model is illustrated by fitting it to data from Illinois, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Ohio.

The WRF model forecast-derived low-level wind shear climatology over the United States great plains

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Storm, B. [Wind Science and Engineering Research Center, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX (United States); Basu, S. [Atmospheric Science Group, Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX (United States)

2010-07-01

For wind resource assessment projects, it is common practice to use a power-law relationship (U(z) {proportional_to} z{sup {alpha}}) and a fixed shear exponent ({alpha} = 1/7) to extrapolate the observed wind speed from a low measurement level to high turbine hub-heights. However, recent studies using tall-tower observations have found that the annual average shear exponents at several locations over the United States Great Plains (USGP) are significantly higher than 1/7. These findings highlight the critical need for detailed spatio-temporal characterizations of wind shear climatology over the USGP, where numerous large wind farms will be constructed in the foreseeable future. In this paper, a new generation numerical weather prediction model - the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, a fast and relatively inexpensive alternative to time-consuming and costly tall-tower projects, is utilized to determine whether it can reliably estimate the shear exponent and the magnitude of the directional shear at any arbitrary location over the USGP. Our results indicate that the WRF model qualitatively captures several low-level wind shear characteristics. However, there is definitely room for physics parameterization improvements for the WRF model to reliably represent the lower part of the atmospheric boundary layer. (author)

SIMULATING REGIONAL-SCALE OZONE CLIMATOLOGY OVER THE EASTERN UNITED STATES (R828733)

Science.gov (United States)

The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Concl...

On the semi-diagnostic computation of climatological circulation in the western tropical Indian Ocean

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Shaji, C.; Rao, A.D.; Dube, S.K.; Bahulayan, N.

and internal density field on the dynamical balance of circulation in the western tropical Indian Ocean is explained. The climatological temperature and salinity data used to drive the model is found to be hydrodynamically adjusted with surface wind, flow field...

The application of low-rank and sparse decomposition method in the field of climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Nitika; Bhaskaran, Prasad K.

2018-04-01

The present study reports a low-rank and sparse decomposition method that separates the mean and the variability of a climate data field. Until now, the application of this technique was limited only in areas such as image processing, web data ranking, and bioinformatics data analysis. In climate science, this method exactly separates the original data into a set of low-rank and sparse components, wherein the low-rank components depict the linearly correlated dataset (expected or mean behavior), and the sparse component represents the variation or perturbation in the dataset from its mean behavior. The study attempts to verify the efficacy of this proposed technique in the field of climatology with two examples of real world. The first example attempts this technique on the maximum wind-speed (MWS) data for the Indian Ocean (IO) region. The study brings to light a decadal reversal pattern in the MWS for the North Indian Ocean (NIO) during the months of June, July, and August (JJA). The second example deals with the sea surface temperature (SST) data for the Bay of Bengal region that exhibits a distinct pattern in the sparse component. The study highlights the importance of the proposed technique used for interpretation and visualization of climate data.

A Multi-parametric Climatological Approach to Study the 2016 Amatrice-Norcia (Central Italy) Earthquake Preparatory Phase

Science.gov (United States)

Piscini, Alessandro; De Santis, Angelo; Marchetti, Dedalo; Cianchini, Gianfranco

2017-10-01

Based on observations prior to earthquakes, recent theoretical considerations suggest that some geophysical quantities reveal abnormal changes that anticipate moderate and strong earthquakes, within a defined spatial area (the so-called Dobrovolsky area) according to a lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere coupling model. One of the possible pre-earthquake effects could be the appearance of some climatological anomalies in the epicentral region, weeks/months before the major earthquakes. In this paper, the period of 2 months preceding the Amatrice-Norcia (Central Italy) earthquake sequence, that started on 24 August 2016 with an M6 earthquake and a few months later produced other two major shocks (i.e. an M5.9 on 26 October and then an M6.5 on 30 October), was analyzed in terms of skin temperature, total column water vapour and total column of ozone, compared with the past 37-year trend. The novelty of the method stands in the way the complete time series is reduced, where also the possible effect of global warming is properly removed. The simultaneous analysis showed the presence of persistent contemporary anomalies in all of the analysed parameters. To validate the technique, a confutation/confirmation analysis was undertaken where these parameters were successfully analyzed in the same months but considering a seismically "calm" year, when significant seismicity was not present. We also extended the analysis to all available years to construct a confusion matrix comparing the occurrence of climatological data anomalies with real seismicity. This work confirms the potentiality of multi parameters in anticipating the occurrence of large earthquakes in Central Italy, thus reinforcing the idea of considering such behaviour an effective tool for an integrated system of future earthquake prediction.

Constructing Ozone Profile Climatologies with Self-Organizing Maps: Illustrations with CONUS Ozonesonde Data

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, A. M.; Stauffer, R. M.; Young, G. S.

2015-12-01

Ozone (O3) trends analysis is typically performed with monthly or seasonal averages. Although this approach works well for stratospheric or total O3, uncertainties in tropospheric O3 amounts may be large due to rapid meteorological changes near the tropopause and in the lower free troposphere (LFT) where pollution has a days-weeks lifetime. We use self-organizing maps (SOM), a clustering technique, as an alternative for creating tropospheric climatologies from O3 soundings. In a previous study of 900 tropical ozonesondes, clusters representing >40% of profiles deviated > 1-sigma from mean O­3. Here SOM are based on 15 years of data from four sites in the contiguous US (CONUS; Boulder, CO; Huntsville, AL; Trinidad Head, CA; Wallops Island, VA). Ozone profiles from 2 - 12 km are used to evaluate the impact of tropopause variability on climatology; 2 - 6 km O3 profile segments are used for the LFT. Near-tropopause O­3 is twice the mean O­3 mixing ratio in three clusters of 2 - 12 km O3, representing > 15% of profiles at each site. Large mid and lower-tropospheric O3 deviations from monthly means are found in clusters of both 2 - 12 and 2 - 6 km O3. Positive offsets result from pollution and stratosphere-to-troposphere exchange. In the LFT the lowest tropospheric O3 is associated with subtropical air. Some clusters include profiles with common seasonality but other factors, e.g., tropopause height or LFT column amount, characterize other SOM nodes. Thus, as for tropical profiles, CONUS O­3 averages can be a poor choice for a climatology.

United States Historical Climatology Network Daily Temperature and Precipitation Data (1871-1997)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Easterling, D.R.

2002-10-28

This document describes a database containing daily observations of maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation amount, snowfall amount, and snow depth from 1062 observing stations across the contiguous US. This database is an expansion and update of the original 138-station database previously released by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) as CDIAC numeric data package NDP-042. These 1062 stations are a subset of the 1221-station US Historical Climatology Network (HCN), a monthly database compiled by the National Climatic Data Center (Asheville, North Carolina) that has been widely used in analyzing US climate. Data from 1050 of these daily records extend into the 1990s, while 990 of these extend through 1997. Most station records are essentially complete for at least 40 years; the latest beginning year of record is 1948. Records from 158 stations begin prior to 1900, with that of Charleston, South Carolina beginning the earliest (1871). The daily resolution of these data makes them extremely valuable for studies attempting to detect and monitor long-term climatic changes on a regional scale. Studies using daily data may be able to detect changes in regional climate that would not be apparent from analysis of monthly temperature and precipitation data. Such studies may include analyses of trends in maximum and minimum temperatures, temperature extremes, daily temperature range, precipitation ''event size'' frequency, and the magnitude and duration of wet and dry periods. The data are also valuable in areas such as regional climate model validation and climate change impact assessment. This database is available free of charge from CDIAC as a numeric data package (NDP).

Tono regional hydrogeological study project. Annual report 2004

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iwatsuki, Teruki; Ota, Kunio; Takeuchi, Shinji; Amano, Kenji; Takeuchi, Ryuji; Saegusa, Hiromitsu; Osawa, Hideaki

2005-09-01

Tono Geoscience Center, Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute has been conducting a wide range of geoscientific research in order to build firm scientific and technological basis for the research and development of geological disposal. One of the geoscientific research programme is a Regional Hydrogeological Study (RHS) project in the Tono region, central Japan. This report mainly summarizes the results of research in DH-14 and DH-15 boreholes at Toki city and Mizunami city in fiscal year 2004 which were carried out to support and improve the results in fiscal year 2003. The research in the regional scale area shows the reliability of conceptual hydrogeological model and numerical simulation for the evaluation of regional hydrogeology. On the other hand, the geological and geophysical investigation, and borehole investigation during the surface-based investigations in the local scale area provide the pragmatic distribution of hydrogeological structure that may control regional groundwater hydrology. Hydrogeological simulations regarding the geological structure such as fault and hydrogeological property demonstrate the priority of investigation of geological structure for the evaluation of hydrogeology. The fault perpendicular to groundwater flow direction crucially affects on regional hydrology. Such fault is necessary to be investigated by priority. Hydrochemical investigation shows that chemical evolution process in this groundwater illustrated is mixing between groundwaters with different salinities. Principal component analysis and mass balance calculation reveal reliable chemistry of end-member waters for mixing. Regarding methodology development, the strategy and procedure of investigations are summarized based on the results of surface-based investigation. Moreover the multi interval monitoring system for water pressure and temperature has developed and started to monitor the in-situ condition of groundwater. The geology, geological structure, hydraulic

Climatology of lightning in the Czech Republic

Science.gov (United States)

Novák, Petr; Kyznarová, Hana

2011-06-01

The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) has utilized lightning data from the Central European Lightning Detection Network (CELDN) since 1999. The CELDN primarily focuses on the detection of cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning but intra-cloud (IC) lightning detection is also available. Lightning detection is used by the CHMI forecasters as an additional source to radar and satellite data for nowcasting of severe storms. Lightning data are also quantitatively used in automatic nowcasting applications. The quality of lightning data can be evaluated using their climatological characteristics. Climatological characteristics are also useful for defining decision thresholds that are valuable for human forecasters as well as for automatic nowcasting applications. The seven-year period from 2002 to 2008, which had relatively even-quality lightning data, was used to calculate the spatial and temporal distributions of lightning. The monthly number of CG strokes varies depending on the season. The highest number of CG strokes occurs during summer, with more than 20 days of at least five detected CG strokes on the Czech Republic territory in June and July. The least number of CG stokes occurs in winter, with less than three days per month having at least five detected CG stokes. The mean diurnal distribution of CG strokes peaks between 1500 and 1600 UTC and reaches a minimum between 0500 and 0800 UTC. The average spatial distribution of CG strokes shows sharp local maxima corresponding with the locations of the TV broadcast towers. The average spatial distribution of CG flash density, calculated on a 20 × 20 km grid, shows the maximum (3.23 flashes km - 2 year - 1 ) in the western part of Czech Republic and the minimum (0.92 flashes km - 2 year - 1 ) in the south-southeast of the Czech Republic. In addition, lightning characteristics related to the identified convective cells, such as distribution of the lightning stroke rates or relation to the radar derived by Vertically

Climatology in support of climate risk management : a progress report.

OpenAIRE

McGregor, G.R.

2015-01-01

Climate risk management has emerged over the last decade as a distinct area of activity within the wider field of climatology. Its focus is on integrating climate and non-climate information in order to enhance the decision-making process in a wide range of climate-sensitive sectors of society, the economy and the environment. Given the burgeoning pure and applied climate science literature that addresses a range of climate risks, the purpose of this progress report is to provide an overview ...

A Study on Evaluation of the Biology Projects Submitted to the TUBITAK Secondary Education Research Projects Contest from the Bursa Region

Science.gov (United States)

Zeren Özer, Dilek; Güngör, Sema Nur; Özkan, Muhlis

2015-01-01

This study evaluates, through the employment of scientific methods and techniques, a total of 107 Biology projects submitted by secondary education students to the Bursa Region Coordinatorship of TUBITAK (a region which encompasses the municipalities of Afyonkarahisar, Balikesir, Bilecik, Canakkale, Eskisehir, Kutahya, and Yalova). The projects…

TransCom satellite intercomparison experiment: construction of a bias corrected atmospheric CO2 climatology

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Saito, R.; Houweling, S.; Patra, P. K.; Belikov, D.; Lokupitiya, R.; Niwa, Y.; Chevallier, F.; Saeki, T.; Maksyutov, S.

2011-01-01

A model-based three-dimensional (3-D) climatology of atmospheric CO2 concentrations has been constructed for the analysis of satellite observations, as a priori information in retrieval calculations, and for preliminary evaluation of remote sensing products. The locations of ground-based instruments

Regional climate change projections of streamflow characteristics in the Northeast and Midwest U.S.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eleonora M.C. Demaria

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Study region: Northeast and Midwest, United States. Study focus: Assessing the climate change impacts on the basin scale is important for water and natural resource managers. Here, the presence of monotonic trends and changes in climate-driven simulated 3-day peak flows, 7-day low flows, and mean base flows are evaluated in the Northeast and Midwest U.S. during the 20th and the 21st centuries using climate projections from sixteen climate models. Proven statistical methods are used to spatially and temporally disaggregate precipitation and temperature fields to a finer resolution before being used as drivers for a hydrological model. New hydrological insights for the region: Changes in the annual cycle of precipitation are likely to occur during the 21st century as winter precipitation increases and warmer temperatures reduce snow coverage across the entire domain especially in the northern basins. Maximum precipitation intensities are projected to become more intense across the region by mid-century especially along the coast. Positive trends in 3-day peak flows are also projected in the region as a result of the more intense precipitation, whereas the magnitude of 7-day low flows and mean base flows are projected to decrease. The length of the low flows season will likely extend by mid-century despite the increased precipitation as the atmospheric demand increases. Keywords: Streamflow peaks, Low flows, Trend analysis, Intense precipitation, Base flows

Future extreme events in European climate: An exploration of regional climate model projections

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beniston, M.; Stephenson, D.B.; Christensen, O.B.

2007-01-01

-90) and future (2071-2 100) climate on the basis of regional climate model simulations produced by the PRUDENCE project. A summary of the main results follows. Heat waves - Regional surface warming causes the frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves to increase over Europe. By the end of the twenty first...

Fun Teaching: The Key to the Future Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Mulvey, G.

2016-12-01

In general meteorology is a science of immediate impact. What will the weather be tomorrow or next week? Climatology and climate change is the science of our long range past and future. Decisions made in the past, now, and in the future on climate change issues did and will continue to impact the global climate. It is essential that current and future generations understand the causes of climate change to make informed decisions regarding individual and government actions needed to mitigate human impacts on the future climate. The university challenge is make climatology an exciting and dynamic adventure into the past, present and future. Instructor and supporting organizations have stepped outside the "old yellow notes" approach to enable students to progress beyond remember, understand, and apply; to analyze, evaluate and create. Responding to this instructional challenge by shifting instructional techniques and tools to a new paradigm does not happen overnight. The instructional strategies to make this jump are known in general, but not in specific. This paper deals with examples of how to translate the instructional strategies into practice in ways that are fun for students and instructors. Techniques to be described include interactive discussions, debates and team challenges, such as: - Describing continental climates during past geological periods - In-class teams debates on legislature to control/modify human CO2 releases Low or no cost teaching aids such as video clips, demonstrations, specimens, and experiments will be described with outcomes and resources interest. Some examples to be discussed are - Tree cookies, cross sections - Ocean core smear slide samples of diatoms, foraminifera, etc. - Ice pack/glacial melt experiments - Glacial flow and interpreting glacial ice cores experiment - Field trips to observe geological strata and geological samples - Storytelling - the shared experiences of each instructor

Very high-resolution regional climate simulations over Scandinavia-present climate

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Ole B.; Christensen, Jens H.; Machenhauer, Bennert

1998-01-01

realistically simulated. It is found in particular that in mountainous regions the high-resolution simulation shows improvements in the simulation of hydrologically relevant fields such as runoff and snow cover. Also, the distribution of precipitation on different intensity classes is most realistically...... on a high-density station network for the Scandinavian countries compiled for the present study. The simulated runoff is compared with observed data from Sweden extracted from a Swedish climatological atlas. These runoff data indicate that the precipitation analyses are underestimating the true...... simulated in the high-resolution simulation. It does, however, inherit certain large-scale systematic errors from the driving GCM. In many cases these errors increase with increasing resolution. Model verification of near-surface temperature and precipitation is made using a new gridded climatology based...

?Strange Attractors (chaos) in the hydro-climatology of Colombia?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Poveda Jaramillo, German

1997-01-01

Inter annual hydro-climatology of Colombia is strongly influenced by extreme phases of ENSO, a phenomenon exhibiting many features of chaotic non-linear system. The possible chaotic nature of Colombian hydrology is examined by using time series of monthly precipitation at Bogota (1866-1992) and Medellin (1908-1995), and average stream flows of the Magdalena River at Puerto Berrio. The power spectrum, the Haussdorf-Besikovich (fractal) dimension, the correlation dimension, and the largest Lyapunov exponent are estimated for the time series. Ideas of hydrologic forecasting and predictability are discussed in the context of nonlinear dynamical systems exhibit chaotic behavior

A cloud climatology of the Southern Great Plains ARM CART

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lazarus, S.M.; Krueger, S.K.; Mace, G.G.

2000-05-15

Cloud amount statistics from three different sources were processed and compared. Surface observations from a National Centers for Environmental Prediction dataset were used. The data (Edited Cloud Report; ECR) consist of synoptic weather reports that have been edited to facilitate cloud analysis. Two stations near the Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Test Bed (CART) in north-central Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Wichita, Kansas) were selected. The ECR data span a 10-yr period from December 1981 to November 1991. The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) provided cloud amounts over the SGP CART for an 8-yr period (1983--91). Cloud amounts were also obtained from Micro Pulse Lidar (MPL) and Belfort Ceilometer (BLC) cloud-base height measurements made at the SGP CART over a 1-yr period. The annual and diurnal cycles of cloud amount as a function of cloud height and type were analyzed. The three datasets closely agree for total cloud amount. Good agreement was found in the ECR and MPL-BLC monthly low cloud amounts. With the exception of summer and midday in other seasons, the ISCCP low cloud amount estimates are generally 5%--10% less than the others. The ECR high cloud amount estimates are typically 10%--15% greater than those obtained from either the ISCCP or MPL-BLC datasets. The observed diurnal variations of altocumulus support the authors' model results of radiatively induced circulations.

Regional cooperation planning. Project planning for JAEA/SNL regional cooperation on remote monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Olsen, John

2006-01-01

Developing cooperation between the JAEA's NPSTC and the NNCA may take advantage of bilateral activities between those parties and SNL. The merger of JNC and JAERI has affected the schedule for JAEA/SNL cooperation. Also, the evolution of the NNCA as an independent agency has slowed the projected schedule for cooperation between the JAEA and the NNCA. A potential schedule for establishment of a quadrilateral remote monitoring system may include interim activities, securing an agreement of some type, and actual establishment of VPN links. A parallel schedule might exist for informing other regional parties and gaining their interest. (author)

A probabilistic method for streamflow projection and associated uncertainty analysis in a data sparse alpine region

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, Weiwei; Yang, Tao; Shi, Pengfei; Xu, Chong-yu; Zhang, Ke; Zhou, Xudong; Shao, Quanxi; Ciais, Philippe

2018-06-01

Climate change imposes profound influence on regional hydrological cycle and water security in many alpine regions worldwide. Investigating regional climate impacts using watershed scale hydrological models requires a large number of input data such as topography, meteorological and hydrological data. However, data scarcity in alpine regions seriously restricts evaluation of climate change impacts on water cycle using conventional approaches based on global or regional climate models, statistical downscaling methods and hydrological models. Therefore, this study is dedicated to development of a probabilistic model to replace the conventional approaches for streamflow projection. The probabilistic model was built upon an advanced Bayesian Neural Network (BNN) approach directly fed by the large-scale climate predictor variables and tested in a typical data sparse alpine region, the Kaidu River basin in Central Asia. Results show that BNN model performs better than the general methods across a number of statistical measures. The BNN method with flexible model structures by active indicator functions, which reduce the dependence on the initial specification for the input variables and the number of hidden units, can work well in a data limited region. Moreover, it can provide more reliable streamflow projections with a robust generalization ability. Forced by the latest bias-corrected GCM scenarios, streamflow projections for the 21st century under three RCP emission pathways were constructed and analyzed. Briefly, the proposed probabilistic projection approach could improve runoff predictive ability over conventional methods and provide better support to water resources planning and management under data limited conditions as well as enable a facilitated climate change impact analysis on runoff and water resources in alpine regions worldwide.

Air-sea exchange over Black Sea estimated from high resolution regional climate simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Velea, Liliana; Bojariu, Roxana; Cica, Roxana

2013-04-01

Black Sea is an important influencing factor for the climate of bordering countries, showing cyclogenetic activity (Trigo et al, 1999) and influencing Mediterranean cyclones passing over. As for other seas, standard observations of the atmosphere are limited in time and space and available observation-based estimations of air-sea exchange terms present quite large ranges of uncertainty. The reanalysis datasets (e.g. ERA produced by ECMWF) provide promising validation estimates of climatic characteristics against the ones in available climatic data (Schrum et al, 2001), while cannot reproduce some local features due to relatively coarse horizontal resolution. Detailed and realistic information on smaller-scale processes are foreseen to be provided by regional climate models, due to continuous improvements of physical parameterizations and numerical solutions and thus affording simulations at high spatial resolution. The aim of the study is to assess the potential of three regional climate models in reproducing known climatological characteristics of air-sea exchange over Black Sea, as well as to explore the added value of the model compared to the input (reanalysis) data. We employ results of long-term (1961-2000) simulations performed within ENSEMBLE project (http://ensemblesrt3.dmi.dk/) using models ETHZ-CLM, CNRM-ALADIN, METO-HadCM, for which the integration domain covers the whole area of interest. The analysis is performed for the entire basin for several variables entering the heat and water budget terms and available as direct output from the models, at seasonal and annual scale. A comparison with independent data (ERA-INTERIM) and findings from other studies (e.g. Schrum et al, 2001) is also presented. References: Schrum, C., Staneva, J., Stanev, E. and Ozsoy, E., 2001: Air-sea exchange in the Black Sea estimated from atmospheric analysis for the period 1979-1993, J. Marine Systems, 31, 3-19 Trigo, I. F., T. D. Davies, and G. R. Bigg (1999): Objective

Climatology and interannual variability of dynamic variables in multiple reanalyses evaluated by the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP)

Science.gov (United States)

Long, Craig S.; Fujiwara, Masatomo; Davis, Sean; Mitchell, Daniel M.; Wright, Corwin J.

2017-12-01

Two of the most basic parameters generated from a reanalysis are temperature and winds. Temperatures in the reanalyses are derived from conventional (surface and balloon), aircraft, and satellite observations. Winds are observed by conventional systems, cloud tracked, and derived from height fields, which are in turn derived from the vertical temperature structure. In this paper we evaluate as part of the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP) the temperature and wind structure of all the recent and past reanalyses. This evaluation is mainly among the reanalyses themselves, but comparisons against independent observations, such as HIRDLS and COSMIC temperatures, are also presented. This evaluation uses monthly mean and 2.5° zonal mean data sets and spans the satellite era from 1979-2014. There is very good agreement in temperature seasonally and latitudinally among the more recent reanalyses (CFSR, MERRA, ERA-Interim, JRA-55, and MERRA-2) between the surface and 10 hPa. At lower pressures there is increased variance among these reanalyses that changes with season and latitude. This variance also changes during the time span of these reanalyses with greater variance during the TOVS period (1979-1998) and less variance afterward in the ATOVS period (1999-2014). There is a distinct change in the temperature structure in the middle and upper stratosphere during this transition from TOVS to ATOVS systems. Zonal winds are in greater agreement than temperatures and this agreement extends to lower pressures than the temperatures. Older reanalyses (NCEP/NCAR, NCEP/DOE, ERA-40, JRA-25) have larger temperature and zonal wind disagreement from the more recent reanalyses. All reanalyses to date have issues analysing the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) winds. Comparisons with Singapore QBO winds show disagreement in the amplitude of the westerly and easterly anomalies. The disagreement with Singapore winds improves with the transition from TOVS to ATOVS observations

LIS/OTD 2.5 DEGREE LOW RES ANNUAL DIURNAL CLIMATOLOGY (LRADC) V2.3.2013

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The product is a 2.5 deg x 2.5 deg gridded composite of climatological total (IC+CG) lightning bulk production as a function of local hour, expressed as a flash rate...

A Smart Climatology of Evaporation Duct Height and Surface Radar Propagation in the Indian Ocean

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Twigg, Katherine L

2007-01-01

.... We have used existing, civilian, dynamically balanced reanalysis data, for 1970 to 2006, and a state-of-the-art ED model, to produce a spatially and temporally refined EDH climatology for the Indian Ocean (10) and nearby seas...

A model technical cooperation project on the marine radioactivity assessment in the Black Sea Region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goektepe, B. G.; Koeksal, G.; Osvath, I.; Koese, A.; Kuecuekcezzar, R.; Varinlioglu, A.; Guengoer, E.

2002-01-01

Marine Environmental Assessment of the Black Sea Region is a wide scope Regional Technical Co-operation Project coded as RER/2/003 implemented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the period 1995-2001.This multidisciplinay project was designed in response to the needs of participating Member States - the six Black Sea coastal countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Georgia and Turkey)- to establish capabilities for reliably assessing radionuclides in the Black Sea environment and applying tracer techniques to marine pollution studies. The IAEA assisted laboratories in the region by providing expert services, training, equipment and materials (Goektepe et al., 1998; Osvath et al., 1997-2000)

Attribution of projected changes in summertime US ozone and PM2.5 concentrations to global changes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Guenther

2009-02-01

Full Text Available The impact that changes in future climate, anthropogenic US emissions, background tropospheric composition, and land-use have on summertime regional US ozone and PM2.5 concentrations is examined through a matrix of downscaled regional air quality simulations, where each set of simulations was conducted for five months of July climatology, using the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ model. Projected regional scale changes in meteorology due to climate change under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC A2 scenario are derived through the downscaling of Parallel Climate Model (PCM output with the MM5 meteorological model. Future chemical boundary conditions are obtained through downscaling of MOZART-2 (Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers, version 2.4 global chemical model simulations based on the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES A2 emissions scenario. Projected changes in US anthropogenic emissions are estimated using the EPA Economic Growth Analysis System (EGAS, and changes in land-use are projected using data from the Community Land Model (CLM and the Spatially Explicit Regional Growth Model (SERGOM. For July conditions, changes in chemical boundary conditions are found to have the largest impact (+5 ppbv on average daily maximum 8-h (DM8H ozone. Changes in US anthropogenic emissions are projected to increase average DM8H ozone by +3 ppbv. Land-use changes are projected to have a significant influence on regional air quality due to the impact these changes have on biogenic hydrocarbon emissions. When climate changes and land-use changes are considered simultaneously, the average DM8H ozone decreases due to a reduction in biogenic VOC emissions (−2.6 ppbv. Changes in average 24-h (A24-h PM2.5 concentrations are dominated by projected changes in anthropogenic emissions (+3 μg m−3, while changes in chemical boundary conditions have a negligible effect. On average, climate change reduces A24-h PM2

7 CFR Guide 1 to Subpart G of... - Project Management Agreement Between the ____ Regional Commission and the Farmers Home...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 13 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Project Management Agreement Between the ____ Regional... Guide 1 to Subpart G of Part 1942—Project Management Agreement Between the ____ Regional Commission and... successor agency under Public Law 103-354, in concurring to this Project Management Agreement, hereby...

Etan hydropower project spurs industrial, agricultural growth of region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1982-01-01

Located in Hongdu commune, Xincheng County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on the middle reaches of the Hongshui River, the Etan hydroelectric power station was begun in 1977 and began to generate power in April 1981. The Etan hydroelectric power station is a run-off type, low waterhead medium-sized power station. It has an installed capacity of 60,000 kW for an average yearly power output of 328 million kWh. The main structure of the power station includes a water diversion canal, a water intake gate, a main machinery building and a switching station. The main machinery building is located on the downstream side of the dam on an overhanging cliff. With a construction area of only 5000 m/sup 2/, work was very difficult due to the restricted work area and transportation problems. By strengthening construction management and promoting technical innovation some 670,000 yuan were saved for the state and construction time was accelerated. This assured the completion of the construction and installation of the main parts of the project according to timetables and design requirements. The successful construction of the Etan hydroelectric power station marks another step in amassing experience in the harnessing of the Hongshui River. The project will have a major impact on the growth of industry and agriculture in Guangxi and on the buildup of the minority regions.

The Added Value to Global Model Projections of Climate Change by Dynamical Downscaling: A Case Study over the Continental U.S. using the GISS-ModelE2 and WRF Models

Science.gov (United States)

Racherla, P. N.; Shindell, D. T.; Faluvegi, G. S.

2012-01-01

Dynamical downscaling is being increasingly used for climate change studies, wherein the climates simulated by a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) for a historical and a future (projected) decade are used to drive a regional climate model (RCM) over a specific area. While previous studies have demonstrated that RCMs can add value to AOGCM-simulated climatologies over different world regions, it is unclear as to whether or not this translates to a better reproduction of the observed climate change therein. We address this issue over the continental U.S. using the GISS-ModelE2 and WRF models, a state-of-the-science AOGCM and RCM, respectively. As configured here, the RCM does not effect holistic improvement in the seasonally and regionally averaged surface air temperature or precipitation for the individual historical decades. Insofar as the climate change between the two decades is concerned, the RCM does improve upon the AOGCM when nudged in the domain proper, but only modestly so. Further, the analysis indicates that there is not a strong relationship between skill in capturing climatological means and skill in capturing climate change. Though additional research would be needed to demonstrate the robustness of this finding in AOGCM/RCM models generally, the evidence indicates that, for climate change studies, the most important factor is the skill of the driving global model itself, suggesting that highest priority should be given to improving the long-range climate skill of AOGCMs.

Choice of baseline climate data impacts projected species' responses to climate change.

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, David J; Hartley, Andrew J; Butchart, Stuart H M; Willis, Stephen G

2016-07-01

Climate data created from historic climate observations are integral to most assessments of potential climate change impacts, and frequently comprise the baseline period used to infer species-climate relationships. They are often also central to downscaling coarse resolution climate simulations from General Circulation Models (GCMs) to project future climate scenarios at ecologically relevant spatial scales. Uncertainty in these baseline data can be large, particularly where weather observations are sparse and climate dynamics are complex (e.g. over mountainous or coastal regions). Yet, importantly, this uncertainty is almost universally overlooked when assessing potential responses of species to climate change. Here, we assessed the importance of historic baseline climate uncertainty for projections of species' responses to future climate change. We built species distribution models (SDMs) for 895 African bird species of conservation concern, using six different climate baselines. We projected these models to two future periods (2040-2069, 2070-2099), using downscaled climate projections, and calculated species turnover and changes in species-specific climate suitability. We found that the choice of baseline climate data constituted an important source of uncertainty in projections of both species turnover and species-specific climate suitability, often comparable with, or more important than, uncertainty arising from the choice of GCM. Importantly, the relative contribution of these factors to projection uncertainty varied spatially. Moreover, when projecting SDMs to sites of biodiversity importance (Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas), these uncertainties altered site-level impacts, which could affect conservation prioritization. Our results highlight that projections of species' responses to climate change are sensitive to uncertainty in the baseline climatology. We recommend that this should be considered routinely in such analyses. © 2016 John Wiley

Effect of land model ensemble versus coupled model ensemble on the simulation of precipitation climatology and variability

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Jiangfeng; Dirmeyer, Paul A.; Yang, Zong-Liang; Chen, Haishan

2017-10-01

Through a series of model simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model coupled to three different land surface models, this study investigates the impacts of land model ensembles and coupled model ensemble on precipitation simulation. It is found that coupling an ensemble of land models to an atmospheric model has a very minor impact on the improvement of precipitation climatology and variability, but a simple ensemble average of the precipitation from three individually coupled land-atmosphere models produces better results, especially for precipitation variability. The generally weak impact of land processes on precipitation should be the main reason that the land model ensembles do not improve precipitation simulation. However, if there are big biases in the land surface model or land surface data set, correcting them could improve the simulated climate, especially for well-constrained regional climate simulations.

Black Sea Mixed Layer Sensitivity to Various Wind and Thermal Forcing Products on Climatological Time Scales

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Kara, A. B; Jurlburt, Harley; Wallcraft, Alan; Bourassa, Mark

2005-01-01

.... Atmospherically-forced model simulations with no assimilation of any ocean data suggest that the basin-averaged RMS SST differences with respect to the Pathfinder SST climatology can vary from 1.21 degrees C...

The One Plan Project: A cooperative effort of the National Response Team and the Region 6 Regional Response Team to simplify facility emergency response planning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Staves, J.; McCormick, K.

1997-01-01

The National Response Team (NRT) in coordination with the Region 6 Response Team (RRT) have developed a facility contingency plan format which would integrate all existing regulatory requirements for contingency planning. This format was developed by a multi-agency team, chaired by the USEPA Region 6, in conjunction with various industry, labor, and public interest groups. The impetus for this project came through the USEPA Office of Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention (CEPPO). The current national oil and hazardous material emergency preparedness and response system is an amalgam of federal, state, local, and industrial programs which are often poorly coordinated. In a cooperative effort with the NRT, the CEPPO conducted a Presidential Review of federal agency authorities and coordination responsibilities regarding release prevention, mitigation, and response. Review recommendations led to a Pilot Project in USEPA Region 6. The Region 6 Pilot Project targeted end users in the intensely industrialized Houston Ship Channel (HSC) area, which is comprised of petroleum and petrochemical companies

Asian regional co-operative project on food irradiation: Technology transfer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-01-01

These Proceedings include the final reports of work performed by different institutions under the scope of Phase II of the Asian Regional Co-operative Project on Food Irradiation. The topics covered include the disinfestation and decontamination of stored products; improvements in the hygiene of processed seafood; insect disinfestation of fruits; and sprout inhibition of root crops. The individual presentations are indexed separately. Refs, figs and tabs

U.S. West Coast MODIS Aqua High Resolution CHLA Climatology Fields (July 2002 - March 2014)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This suite of CHLA and SST climatology and anomaly data products are derived from daily, 0.0125 degree x 0.0125 degree, MODIS Aqua CHLA and SST fields that cover the...

U.S. West Coast MODIS Aqua High Resolution SST Climatology Fields (July 2002 - March 2014)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This suite of CHLA and SST climatology and anomaly data products are derived from daily, 0.0125 degree x 0.0125 degree, MODIS Aqua CHLA and SST fields that cover the...

Ungulate Reproductive Parameters Track Satellite Observations of Plant Phenology across Latitude and Climatological Regimes.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David C Stoner

Full Text Available The effect of climatically-driven plant phenology on mammalian reproduction is one key to predicting species-specific demographic responses to climate change. Large ungulates face their greatest energetic demands from the later stages of pregnancy through weaning, and so in seasonal environments parturition dates should match periods of high primary productivity. Interannual variation in weather influences the quality and timing of forage availability, which can influence neonatal survival. Here, we evaluated macro-scale patterns in reproductive performance of a widely distributed ungulate (mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus across contrasting climatological regimes using satellite-derived indices of primary productivity and plant phenology over eight degrees of latitude (890 km in the American Southwest. The dataset comprised > 180,000 animal observations taken from 54 populations over eight years (2004-2011. Regionally, both the start and peak of growing season ("Start" and "Peak", respectively are negatively and significantly correlated with latitude, an unusual pattern stemming from a change in the dominance of spring snowmelt in the north to the influence of the North American Monsoon in the south. Corresponding to the timing and variation in both the Start and Peak, mule deer reproduction was latest, lowest, and most variable at lower latitudes where plant phenology is timed to the onset of monsoonal moisture. Parturition dates closely tracked the growing season across space, lagging behind the Start and preceding the Peak by 27 and 23 days, respectively. Mean juvenile production increased, and variation decreased, with increasing latitude. Temporally, juvenile production was best predicted by primary productivity during summer, which encompassed late pregnancy, parturition, and early lactation. Our findings offer a parsimonious explanation of two key reproductive parameters in ungulate demography, timing of parturition and mean annual

Comparative Climatology of Terrestrial Planets

Science.gov (United States)

Mackwell, Stephen J.; Simon-Miller, Amy A.; Harder, Jerald W.; Bullock, Mark A.

stimulate further research on this critical subject. The study of climate involves much more than understanding atmospheric processes. This subtlety is particularly appreciated for Earth, where chemical cycles, geology, ocean influences, and biology are considered in most climate models. In Part IV, Surface and Interior, we look at the role that geochemical cycles, volcanism, and interior mantle processes play in the stability and evolution of terrestrial planetary climates. There is one vital commonality between the climates of all the planets of the solar system: Regardless of the different processes that dominate each of the climates of Earth, Mars, Venus, and Titan, they are all ultimately forced by radiation from the same star, albeit at variable distances. In Part V, Solar Influences, we discuss how the Sun's early evolution affected the climates of the terrestrial planets, and how it continues to control the temperatures and compositions of planetary atmospheres. This will be of particular interest as models of exoplanets, and the influences of much different stellar types and distances, are advanced by further observations. Comparisons of atmospheric and climate processes between the planets in our solar system has been a focus of numerous conferences over the past decade, including the Exoclimes conference series. In particular, this book project was closely tied to a conference on Comparative Climatology of Terrestrial Planets that was held in Boulder, Colorado, on June 25-28, 2012. This book benefited from the opportunity for the author teams to interact and obtain feedback from the broader community, but the chapters do not in general tie directly to presentations at the conference. The conference, which was organized by a diverse group of atmospheric and climate scientists led by Mark Bullock and Lori Glaze, sought to build connections between the various communities, focusing on synergies and complementary capabilities. Discussion panels at the end of most

SKS splitting results in central Italy and Dinaric region inside the AlpArray-CASE project

Science.gov (United States)

Salimbeni, S.; Prevolnik, S.; Pondrelli, S.; Molinari, I.; Stipcevic, J.; Kissling, E.; Šipka, V.; Herak, M.

2017-12-01

In the framework of the AlpArray project (AlpArray Seismic Network, 2015), the complementary "Central Adriatic Seismic Experiment" (CASE; AlpArray Seismic Network, 2016) was established as collaboration between ETH Zürich, University of Zagreb, INGV and Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Republic of Srpska. The CASE project consists of 9 temporary stations, installed in October 2016, located in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Italy. Temporary broadband seismic stations, with the permanent stations present in the region shared by the Croatian Seismological Service and INGV, make an almost continuous transect cutting the Central-Southern Appenines, the central Adriatic region, central External Dinarides and finishing at the eastern margin of the Internal Dinarides. The presence of the the Apenninic and Dinarides slabs, verging in opposite directions and plunging along the opposite sides of the Adriatic plate, make this area a peculiar spot to understand the complex dynamic of the region. Various tomographic images (e.g. Bijwaard and Spakman, 2000; Piromallo and Morelli, 2003) shows not continuous slabs under the Appenines and the Dinarides, suggesting the presence of slab-gaps right beneath the region covered by the CASE experiment. Here we present the preliminary results of the SKS splitting analysis performed on the data recorded by the temporary and permanent seismic stations included in the CASE project. The new results, in combination with previous interpretation, will provide clues about how Northern and Southern Apennines are connected at depth, how the slab rollback of the Apennines thrust belt acted and if and how the Apennines are in relation with the Dinaric region. Together with the measurements from previous studies and from the AlpArray project, our new data will support the mapping of the seismic anisotropy deformation pattern from Western Alps to Pannonian region.

Regional climate service in Southern Germany

Science.gov (United States)

Schipper, Janus; Hackenbruch, Julia

2013-04-01

Climate change challenges science, politics, business and society at the international, national and regional level. The South German Climate Office at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is a contact for the structuring and dissemination of information on climate and climate change in the South German region. It provides scientifically based and user-oriented climate information. Thereby it builds a bridge between the climate sciences and society and provides scientific information on climate change in an understandable way. The expertise of KIT, in which several institutions operate on fundamental and applied climate research, and of partner institutions is the basis for the work in the climate office. The regional focus is on the south of Germany. Thematic focuses are e.g. regional climate modeling, trends in extreme weather events such as heavy rain and hail event, and issues for energy and water management. The South German Climate Office is one of four Regional Helmholtz Climate Offices, of which each has a regional and thematic focus. The users of the Climate Office can be summarized into three categories. First, there is the general public. This category consists mainly of non-professionals. Here, special attention is on an understandable translation of climate information. Attention is paid to application-related aspects, because each individual is affected in a different way by climate change. Typical examples of this category are school groups, citizens and the media. The second category consists of experts of other disciplines. Unlike the first category they are mainly interested in the exchange of results and data. It is important to the climate office to provide support for the use of climatological results. Typical representatives of this category are ministries, state offices, and companies. In the third and final category are scientists. In addition to the climatologists, this category also holds representatives from other scientific

Development of Distributed Research Center for monitoring and projecting regional climatic and environmental changes: first results

Science.gov (United States)

Gordov, Evgeny; Shiklomanov, Alexander; Okladinikov, Igor; Prusevich, Alex; Titov, Alexander

2016-04-01

Description and first results of the cooperative project "Development of Distributed Research Center for monitoring and projecting of regional climatic and environmental changes" recently started by SCERT IMCES and ESRC UNH are reported. The project is aimed at development of hardware and software platform prototype of Distributed Research Center (DRC) for monitoring and projecting regional climatic and environmental changes over the areas of mutual interest and demonstration the benefits of such collaboration that complements skills and regional knowledge across the northern extratropics. In the framework of the project, innovative approaches of "cloud" processing and analysis of large geospatial datasets will be developed on the technical platforms of two U.S. and Russian leading institutions involved in research of climate change and its consequences. Anticipated results will create a pathway for development and deployment of thematic international virtual research centers focused on interdisciplinary environmental studies by international research teams. DRC under development will comprise best features and functionality of earlier developed by the cooperating teams' information-computational systems RIMS (http://rims.unh.edu) and CLIMATE(http://climate.scert.ru/), which are widely used in Northern Eurasia environment studies. The project includes several major directions of research (Tasks) listed below. 1. Development of architecture and defining major hardware and software components of DRC for monitoring and projecting of regional environmental changes. 2. Development of an information database and computing software suite for distributed processing and analysis of large geospatial data hosted at ESRC and IMCES SB RAS. 3. Development of geoportal, thematic web client and web services providing international research teams with an access to "cloud" computing resources at DRC; two options will be executed: access through a basic graphical web browser and

OMI/Aura Surface Reflectance Climatology Level 3 Global 0.5deg Lat/Lon Grid V003

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The OMI Earth Surface Reflectance Climatology product, OMLER (Global 0.5deg Lat/Lon grid) which is based on Version 003 Level-1B top of atmosphere upwelling radiance...

16 year climatology of cirrus clouds over a tropical station in southern India using ground and space-based lidar observations

Science.gov (United States)

Pandit, A. K.; Gadhavi, H. S.; Venkat Ratnam, M.; Raghunath, K.; Rao, S. V. B.; Jayaraman, A.

2015-06-01

16 year (1998-2013) climatology of cirrus clouds and their macrophysical (base height, top height and geometrical thickness) and optical properties (cloud optical thickness) observed using a ground-based lidar over Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), India, is presented. The climatology obtained from the ground-based lidar is compared with the climatology obtained from seven and half years (June 2006-December 2013) of Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) observations. A very good agreement is found between the two climatologies in spite of their opposite viewing geometries and difference in sampling frequencies. Nearly 50-55% of cirrus clouds were found to possess geometrical thickness less than 2 km. Ground-based lidar is found to detect more number of sub-visible clouds than CALIOP which has implications for global warming studies as sub-visible cirrus clouds have significant positive radiative forcing. Cirrus clouds with mid-cloud temperatures between -50 to -70 °C have a mean geometrical thickness greater than 2 km in contrast to the earlier reported value of 1.7 km. Trend analyses reveal a statistically significant increase in the altitude of sub-visible cirrus clouds which is consistent with the recent climate model simulations. Also, the fraction of sub-visible cirrus cloud is found to be increasing during the last sixteen years (1998 to 2013) which has implications to the temperature and water vapour budget in the tropical tropopause layer.

Region-to-area screening methodology for the Crystalline Repository Project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1985-04-01

The purpose of this document is to describe the Crystalline Repository Project's (CRP) process for region-to-area screening of exposed and near-surface crystalline rock bodies in the three regions of the conterminous United States where crystalline rock is being evaluated as a potential host for the second nuclear waste repository (i.e., in the North Central, Northeastern, and Southeastern Regions). This document indicates how the US Department of Energy's (DOE) General Guidelines for the Recommendation of Sites for Nuclear Waste Repositories (10 CFR 960) were used to select and apply factors and variables for the region-to-area screening, explains how these factors and variable are to be applied in the region-to-area screening, and indicates how this methodology relates to the decision process leading to the selection of candidate areas. A brief general discussion of the screening process from the national survey through area screening and site recommendation is presented. This discussion sets the scene for detailed discussions which follow concerning the region-to-area screening process, the guidance provided by the DOE Siting Guidelines for establishing disqualifying factors and variables for screening, and application of the disqualifying factors and variables in the screening process. This document is complementary to the regional geologic and environmental characterization reports to be issued in the summer of 1985 as final documents. These reports will contain the geologic and environmental data base that will be used in conjunction with the methodology to conduct region-to-area screening

Importance of ensembles in projecting regional climate trends

Science.gov (United States)

Arritt, Raymond; Daniel, Ariele; Groisman, Pavel

2016-04-01

We have performed an ensemble of simulations using RegCM4 to examine the ability to reproduce observed trends in precipitation intensity and to project future changes through the 21st century for the central United States. We created a matrix of simulations over the CORDEX North America domain for 1950-2099 by driving the regional model with two different global models (HadGEM2-ES and GFDL-ESM2M, both for RCP8.5), by performing simulations at both 50 km and 25 km grid spacing, and by using three different convective parameterizations. The result is a set of 12 simulations (two GCMs by two resolutions by three convective parameterizations) that can be used to systematically evaluate the influence of simulation design on predicted precipitation. The two global models were selected to bracket the range of climate sensitivity in the CMIP5 models: HadGEM2-ES has the highest ECS of the CMIP5 models, while GFDL-ESM2M has one of the lowestt. Our evaluation metrics differ from many other RCM studies in that we focus on the skill of the models in reproducing past trends rather than the mean climate state. Trends in frequency of extreme precipitation (defined as amounts exceeding 76.2 mm/day) for most simulations are similar to the observed trend but with notable variations depending on RegCM4 configuration and on the driving GCM. There are complex interactions among resolution, choice of convective parameterization, and the driving GCM that carry over into the future climate projections. We also note that biases in the current climate do not correspond to biases in trends. As an example of these points the Emanuel scheme is consistently "wet" (positive bias in precipitation) yet it produced the smallest precipitation increase of the three convective parameterizations when used in simulations driven by HadGEM2-ES. However, it produced the largest increase when driven by GFDL-ESM2M. These findings reiterate that ensembles using multiple RCM configurations and driving GCMs are

Inventory of current environmental monitoring projects in the US-Canadian transboundary region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Glantz, C.S.; Ballinger, M.Y.; Chapman, E.G.

1986-05-01

This document presents the results of a study commissioned to survey and summarize major environmental monitoring projects in the US-Canadian transboundary region. Projects with field sites located within 400 km (250 mi) of the border and active after 1980 were reviewed. The types of projects included: ambient air-quality monitoring, ambient water-quality monitoring, deposition monitoring, forest/vegetation monitoring and research, soil studies, and ecosystem studies. Ecosystem studies included projects involving the measurement of parameters from more than one monitoring category (e.g., studies that measured both water and soil chemistry). Individual descriptions were formulated for 184 projects meeting the spatial and temporal criteria. Descriptions included the official title for the project, its common abbreviation, program emphasis, monitoring site locations, time period conducted, parameters measured, protocols employed, frequency of sample collection, data storage information, and the principal contact for the project. A summary inventory subdivided according to the six monitoring categories was prepared using a computerized data management system. Information on major centralized data bases in the field of environmental monitoring was also obtained, and summary descriptions were prepared. The inventory and data base descriptions are presented in appendices to this document.

A New Estimate of North American Mountain Snow Accumulation From Regional Climate Model Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Wrzesien, Melissa L.; Durand, Michael T.; Pavelsky, Tamlin M.; Kapnick, Sarah B.; Zhang, Yu; Guo, Junyi; Shum, C. K.

2018-02-01

Despite the importance of mountain snowpack to understanding the water and energy cycles in North America's montane regions, no reliable mountain snow climatology exists for the entire continent. We present a new estimate of mountain snow water equivalent (SWE) for North America from regional climate model simulations. Climatological peak SWE in North America mountains is 1,006 km3, 2.94 times larger than previous estimates from reanalyses. By combining this mountain SWE value with the best available global product in nonmountain areas, we estimate peak North America SWE of 1,684 km3, 55% greater than previous estimates. In our simulations, the date of maximum SWE varies widely by mountain range, from early March to mid-April. Though mountains comprise 24% of the continent's land area, we estimate that they contain 60% of North American SWE. This new estimate is a suitable benchmark for continental- and global-scale water and energy budget studies.

Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes (SHADOZ) Ozone Climatology (2005-2009): Tropospheric and Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL) Profiles with Comparisons to Omi-based Ozone Products

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Anne M.; Miller, Sonya K.; Tilmes, Simone; Kollonige, Debra W.; Witte, Jacquelyn C.; Oltmans, Samuel J.; Johnson, Brian J.; Fujiwara, Masatomo; Schmidlin, F. J.; Coetzee, G. J. R.;

The regional (Europe) project on study of energy options using the IAEA planning methodologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Molina, P.

1997-01-01

As a means to assist developing IAEA Member States in the Europe region in the broad area of energy, electricity and nuclear power planning, a new project has been implemented as part of the IAEA Technical Cooperation Programme. This paper describes the major objectives of this regional TC project and the activities to be organized in order to provide the required assistance. Focus is made on the present workshop and the current activities sponsored by the IAEA for further developments of the IAEA planning tools for energy, electricity and nuclear power planning with emphasis on the Energy and Power Evaluation Program (ENPEP) and the Wien Automatic System Planning (WASP) packages. (author)

The regional (Europe) project on study of energy options using the IAEA planning methodologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Molina, P [Division of Nuclear Power, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria)

1997-09-01

As a means to assist developing IAEA Member States in the Europe region in the broad area of energy, electricity and nuclear power planning, a new project has been implemented as part of the IAEA Technical Cooperation Programme. This paper describes the major objectives of this regional TC project and the activities to be organized in order to provide the required assistance. Focus is made on the present workshop and the current activities sponsored by the IAEA for further developments of the IAEA planning tools for energy, electricity and nuclear power planning with emphasis on the Energy and Power Evaluation Program (ENPEP) and the Wien Automatic System Planning (WASP) packages. (author).

eHealth for Remote Regions: Findings from Central Asia Health Systems Strengthening Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Sajwani, Afroz; Qureshi, Kiran; Shaikh, Tehniat; Sayani, Saleem

2015-01-01

Isolated communities in remote regions of Afghanistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan and Tajikistan lack access to high-quality, low-cost health care services, forcing them to travel to distant parts of the country, bearing an unnecessary financial burden. The eHealth Programme under Central Asia Health Systems Strengthening (CAHSS) Project, a joint initiative between the Aga Khan Foundation, Canada and the Government of Canada, was initiated in 2013 with the aim to utilize Information and Communication Technologies to link health care institutions and providers with rural communities to provide comprehensive and coordinated care, helping minimize the barriers of distance and time. Under the CAHSS Project, access to low-cost, quality health care is provided through a regional hub and spoke teleconsultation network of government and non-government health facilities. In addition, capacity building initiatives are offered to health professionals. By 2017, the network is expected to connect seven Tier 1 tertiary care facilities with 14 Tier 2 secondary care facilities for teleconsultation and eLearning. From April 2013 to September 2014, 6140 teleconsultations have been provided across the project sites. Additionally, 52 new eLearning sessions have been developed and 2020 staff members have benefitted from eLearning sessions. Ethics and patient rights are respected during project implementation.

FOLA - the district heat supply project for the Olten-Aarau region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Utzinger, E.

1986-01-01

The FOLA project envisages supply of nuclear power station heat via pipe lines to communities in the Olten-Aarau region. The project is introduced with reference to environmental and oil saving advantages. Heat from the nuclear power station steam circuit converted via heat exchangers would be transmitted through pressurised hot water pipe line networks to user communities for extraction by heat exchangers at consumer installations. Some network details are discussed. The exact supply area is not yet finalised, but estimated heat loading is about 150 MW. Following further studies a construction and operating company could be formed, and heat delivery could commence in 1989. (H.V.H.)

Adults Experiencing Homelessness in the US–Mexico Border Region: A Photovoice Project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eva Margarita Moya

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Homelessness is a social, economic, and political crisis in the United States. In particular, the US–Mexico Border region has seen a surge of homelessness, specifically among veterans, women victims of intimate partner violence, and immigrants. In 2014, 12 persons in El Paso, TX, with experience of being homeless used the photovoice methodology to participate in a project titled, “The Voices and Images of the Residents of the Opportunity Center for the Homeless: A Visual Project on the Identity and Challenges Homeless Adults Face on the Border Region.” The project was led by faculty from the Department of Social Work and facilitated by graduate students from the Departments of Social Work, Sociology, and Anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso. In partnership with the Opportunity Center for the Homeless, a community-based organization, a gallery of photographs with respective narratives was produced along with a video documentary. The participants identified four themes: broken systems, invisibility, opportunities and what works, and growth and determination. These themes represent participants’ life experiences with homelessness and their aspirations. In addition to the photo gallery, participants supported the development of a Call to Action asking the community, policy, and decision makers to commit to changing the current social, economic, and political conditions affecting individuals experiencing homelessness. The gallery, Call to Action, and overall participant experiences with photovoice were shared during local, regional, and national conferences and events, including three State of the Homeless Conferences led by the Opportunity Center for the Homeless in partnership with the university.

Adults Experiencing Homelessness in the US–Mexico Border Region: A Photovoice Project

Science.gov (United States)

Moya, Eva Margarita; Chavez-Baray, Silvia M.; Loweree, Jacqueline; Mattera, Brian; Martinez, Nahomi

2017-01-01

Homelessness is a social, economic, and political crisis in the United States. In particular, the US–Mexico Border region has seen a surge of homelessness, specifically among veterans, women victims of intimate partner violence, and immigrants. In 2014, 12 persons in El Paso, TX, with experience of being homeless used the photovoice methodology to participate in a project titled, “The Voices and Images of the Residents of the Opportunity Center for the Homeless: A Visual Project on the Identity and Challenges Homeless Adults Face on the Border Region.” The project was led by faculty from the Department of Social Work and facilitated by graduate students from the Departments of Social Work, Sociology, and Anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso. In partnership with the Opportunity Center for the Homeless, a community-based organization, a gallery of photographs with respective narratives was produced along with a video documentary. The participants identified four themes: broken systems, invisibility, opportunities and what works, and growth and determination. These themes represent participants’ life experiences with homelessness and their aspirations. In addition to the photo gallery, participants supported the development of a Call to Action asking the community, policy, and decision makers to commit to changing the current social, economic, and political conditions affecting individuals experiencing homelessness. The gallery, Call to Action, and overall participant experiences with photovoice were shared during local, regional, and national conferences and events, including three State of the Homeless Conferences led by the Opportunity Center for the Homeless in partnership with the university. PMID:28580355

Determination of dynamic heights in the Bay of Bengal from XBT profiles and climatological salinities

Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

Ali, M.M.; Gopalakrishna, V.V.; Araligidad, N.; Reddy, G.V.; Salgaonkar, G.

errors compared to the DH signals are 3.8%, 2.7% and 2.6% for 200, 700 and 1000 dbar levels, respectively. The DHs relative to 700 dbar computed using the XBT temperature and climatological salinity profiles are compared with the SSH observations from...

Project scoping for lessons learnt to apply to the Celtic Seas marine sub-region

OpenAIRE

Twomey, Sarah; O'Mahony, Cathal

2013-01-01

This report involves a formal scoping exercise to identify lessons from a wide range of previous and current project and initiative experiences at the national, regional seas, European and global levels. An inventory of 77 projects and initiatives that are relevant with regard to the key activities proposed by the Celtic Seas Partnership has been compiled, as well as a short-list of 23 of the most pertinent projects, lessons learnt and contact names. This report has identified a number of syn...

Spatial Heterogeneity in Tropospheric Column Ozone over the Indian Subcontinent: Long-Term Climatology and Possible Association with Natural and Anthropogenic Activities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gayatry Kalita

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Monthly averaged tropospheric ozone residual (TOR data from TOMS and OMI during the period 1979–2009 are used to study the spatial distribution of tropospheric column ozone within the landmass of the Indian subcontinent, the Tibetan plateau in the north and the Bay of Bengal in the south. The climatological mean shows seasonal maxima in spring and minima in winter in all the regions. The oceanic regions exhibit broad summer maximum and the maximum to minimum ratio is the lowest for these regions. The concentration of tropospheric column ozone is found to be highest in North Eastern India (NE and the Indo Gangetic plains (IGP. NE ozone concentration exceeds that of IGP during spring whereas in post monsoon and winter reverse is the case. In the monsoon season, O3 levels in the two regions are equal. The spring time highest level of tropospheric column ozone over NE region is found to be associated with highest incidence of lightning and biomass burning activity. The Stratosphere-Troposphere exchange is also found to contribute to the enhanced level of ozone in spring in NE India. A net decrease in tropospheric ozone concentration over NE during the period 1979 to 2009 has been observed.

Introduction to the Arizona Sky Island Arthropod Project (ASAP): Systematics, Biogeography, Ecology, and Population Genetics of Arthropods of the Madrean Sky Islands.

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Wendy; Meyer, Wallace M; Eble, Jeffrey A; Franklin, Kimberly; Wiens, John F; Brusca, Richard C

2013-01-01

The Arizona Sky Island Arthropod Project (ASAP) is a new multi-disciplinary research program at the University of Arizona that combines systematics, biogeography, ecology, and population genetics to study origins and patterns of arthropod diversity along elevation gradients and among mountain ranges in the Madrean Sky Island Region. Arthropods represent taxonomically and ecologically diverse organisms that drive key ecosystem processes in this mountain archipelago. Using data from museum specimens and specimens we obtain during long-term collecting and monitoring programs, ASAP will document arthropod species across Arizona's Sky Islands to address a number of fundamental questions about arthropods of this region. Baseline data will be used to determine climatic boundaries for target species, which will then be integrated with climatological models to predict future changes in arthropod communities and distributions in the wake of rapid climate change. ASAP also makes use of the natural laboratory provided by the Sky Islands to investigate ecological and genetic factors that influence diversification and patterns of community assembly. Here, we introduce the project, outline overarching goals, and describe preliminary data from the first year of sampling ground-dwelling beetles and ants in the Santa Catalina Mountains.

Role of resolution in regional climate change projections over China

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Ying; Wang, Guiling; Gao, Xuejie

2017-11-01

This paper investigates the sensitivity of projected future climate changes over China to the horizontal resolution of a regional climate model RegCM4.4 (RegCM), using RCP8.5 as an example. Model validation shows that RegCM performs better in reproducing the spatial distribution and magnitude of present-day temperature, precipitation and climate extremes than the driving global climate model HadGEM2-ES (HadGEM, at 1.875° × 1.25° degree resolution), but little difference is found between the simulations at 50 and 25 km resolutions. Comparison with observational data at different resolutions confirmed the added value of the RCM and finer model resolutions in better capturing the probability distribution of precipitation. However, HadGEM and RegCM at both resolutions project a similar pattern of significant future warming during both winter and summer, and a similar pattern of winter precipitation changes including dominant increase in most areas of northern China and little change or decrease in the southern part. Projected precipitation changes in summer diverge among the three models, especially over eastern China, with a general increase in HadGEM, little change in RegCM at 50 km, and a mix of increase and decrease in RegCM at 25 km resolution. Changes of temperature-related extremes (annual total number of daily maximum temperature > 25 °C, the maximum value of daily maximum temperature, the minimum value of daily minimum temperature in the three simulations especially in the two RegCM simulations are very similar to each other; so are the precipitation-related extremes (maximum consecutive dry days, maximum consecutive 5-day precipitation and extremely wet days' total amount). Overall, results from this study indicate a very low sensitivity of projected changes in this region to model resolution. While fine resolution is critical for capturing the spatial variability of the control climate, it may not be as important for capturing the climate response to

Regional assessment of Climate change impacts in the Mediterranean: the CIRCE project

Science.gov (United States)

Iglesias, A.

2011-12-01

The CIRCE project has developed for the first time an assessment of the climate change impacts in the Mediterranean area. The objectives of the project are: to predict and to quantify physical impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean area; to evaluate the consequences of climate change for the society and the economy of the populations located in the Mediterranean area; to develop an integrated approach to understand combined effects of climate change; and to identify adaptation and mitigation strategies in collaboration with regional stakeholders. The CIRCE Project, coordinated by the Instituto Nazionale di Geofisca e Vulcanologia, started on 1st April 2007 and ended in a policy conference in Rome on June 2011. CIRCE involves 64 partners from Europe, Middle East and North Africa working together to evaluate the best strategies of adaptation to the climate change in the Mediterranean basin. CIRCE wants to understand and to explain how climate will change in the Mediterranean area bringing together the natural sciences community and social community in a new integrated and comprehensive way. The project has investigated how global and Mediterranean climates interact, how the radiative properties of the atmosphere and the radiative fluxes vary, the interaction between cloudiness and aerosol, the modifications in the water cycle. Recent observed modifications in the climate variables and detected trends will be compared. The economic and social consequences of climate change are evaluated by analysing direct impacts on migration, tourism and energy markets together with indirect impacts on the economic system. CIRCE has produced results about the consequences on agriculture, forests and ecosystems, human health and air quality. The variability of extreme events in the future scenario and their impacts is also assessed. A rigorous common framework, including a set of quantitative indicators developed specifically for the Mediterranean environment was be developed

Southeast Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant Facilities Improvements Project and Geysers Effluent Pipeline Project. Final EIR/EIS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1994-01-01

On May 26, 1994, the Lake County Sanitation District and the US Bureau of Land Management released for public review a Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) on the proposed Southeast Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant Facilities Improvements Project and Geysers Effluent Pipeline Project. A minimum 45-day review and comment period began on that date and notices were published in the Federal Register. The public review and comment period closed on July 26, 1994. Public hearings on the Draft EIMIS were held in Lakeport, CA, on June 30 and July 14, 1994. The first part of this document contains copies of the written comments submitted on the Draft EIR/EIS. It also contains summary paraphrased comments of the public hearings. The second part of this document contains responses to the comments

Mid-latitude tropospheric ozone columns from the MOZAIC program: climatology and interannual variability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. M. Zbinden

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Several thousands of ozone vertical profiles collected in the course of the MOZAIC programme (Measurements of Ozone, Water Vapour, Carbon Monoxide and Nitrogen Oxides by In-Service Airbus Aircraft from August 1994 to February 2002 are investigated to bring out climatological and interannual variability aspects. The study is centred on the most frequently visited MOZAIC airports, i.e. Frankfurt (Germany, Paris (France, New York (USA and the cluster of Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka (Japan. The analysis focuses on the vertical integration of ozone from the ground to the dynamical tropopause and the vertical integration of stratospheric-origin ozone throughout the troposphere. The characteristics of the MOZAIC profiles: frequency of flights, accuracy, precision, and depth of the troposphere observed, are presented. The climatological analysis shows that the Tropospheric Ozone Column (TOC seasonal cycle ranges from a wintertime minimum at all four stations to a spring-summer maximum in Frankfurt, Paris, and New York. Over Japan, the maximum occurs in spring presumably because of the earlier springtime sun. The incursion of monsoon air masses into the boundary layer and into the mid troposphere then steeply diminishes the summertime value. Boundary layer contributions to the TOC are 10% higher in New York than in Frankfurt and Paris during spring and summer, and are 10% higher in Japan than in New York, Frankfurt and Paris during autumn and early spring. Local and remote anthropogenic emissions, and biomass burning over upstream regions of Asia may be responsible for the larger low- and mid-tropospheric contributions to the tropospheric ozone column over Japan throughout the year except during the summer-monsoon season. A simple Lagrangian analysis has shown that a minimum of 10% of the TOC is of stratospheric-origin throughout the year. Investigation of the short-term trends of the TOC over the period 1995–2001 shows a linear increase 0.7%/year in

A seasonal-scale climatological analysis correlating spring tornadic activity with antecedent fall-winter drought in the southeastern United States

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shepherd, Marshall; Mote, Thomas L; Niyogi, Dev

2009-01-01

Using rain gauge and satellite-based rainfall climatologies and the NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database (1952-2007), this study found a statistically significant tendency for fall-winter drought conditions to be correlated with below-normal tornado days the following spring in north Georgia (i.e. 93% of the years) and other regions of the Southeast. Non-drought years had nearly twice as many tornado days in the study area as drought years and were also five to six times more likely to have multiple tornado days. Individual tornadic events are largely a function of the convective-mesoscale thermodynamic and dynamic environments, thus the study does not attempt to overstate predictability. Yet, the results may provide seasonal guidance in an analogous manner to the well known Sahelian rainfall and Cape Verde hurricane activity relationships.

Prediction of periodically correlated processes by wavelet transform and multivariate methods with applications to climatological data

Science.gov (United States)

Ghanbarzadeh, Mitra; Aminghafari, Mina

2015-05-01

This article studies the prediction of periodically correlated process using wavelet transform and multivariate methods with applications to climatological data. Periodically correlated processes can be reformulated as multivariate stationary processes. Considering this fact, two new prediction methods are proposed. In the first method, we use stepwise regression between the principal components of the multivariate stationary process and past wavelet coefficients of the process to get a prediction. In the second method, we propose its multivariate version without principal component analysis a priori. Also, we study a generalization of the prediction methods dealing with a deterministic trend using exponential smoothing. Finally, we illustrate the performance of the proposed methods on simulated and real climatological data (ozone amounts, flows of a river, solar radiation, and sea levels) compared with the multivariate autoregressive model. The proposed methods give good results as we expected.

Climatology of medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances observed by the midlatitude Blackstone SuperDARN radar

Science.gov (United States)

Frissell, N. A.; Baker, J. B. H.; Ruohoniemi, J. M.; Gerrard, A. J.; Miller, E. S.; Marini, J. P.; West, M. L.; Bristow, W. A.

2014-09-01

A climatology of daytime midlatitude medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) observed by the Blackstone Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) radar is presented. MSTIDs were observed primarily from fall through spring. Two populations were observed: a dominant population heading southeast (centered at 147° geographic azimuth, ranging from 100° to 210°) and a secondary population heading northwest (centered at -50° azimuth, ranging from -75° to -25°). Horizontal velocities ranged from 50 to 250 m s-1 with a distribution maximum between 100 and 150 m s-1. Horizontal wavelengths ranged from 100 to 500 km with a distribution peak at 250 km, and periods between 23 and 60 min, suggesting that the MSTIDs may be consistent with thermospheric gravity waves. A local time (LT) dependence was observed such that the dominant (southeastward) population decreased in number as the day progressed until a late afternoon increase. The secondary (northwestward) population appeared only in the afternoon, possibly indicative of neutral wind effects or variability of sources. LT dependence was not observed in other parameters. Possible solar-geomagnetic and tropospheric MSTID sources were considered. The auroral electrojet (AE) index showed a correlation with MSTID statistics. Reverse ray tracing with the HINDGRATS model indicates that the dominant population has source regions over the Great Lakes and near the geomagnetic cusp, while the secondary population source region is 100 km above the Atlantic Ocean east of the Carolinas. This suggests that the dominant population may come from a region favorable to either tropospheric or geomagnetic sources, while the secondary population originates from a region favorable to secondary waves generated via lower atmospheric convection.

The Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom): Comparing the Chemical Climatology of Reactive Species and Air Parcels from Measurements and Global Models

Science.gov (United States)

Prather, M. J.; Flynn, C.; Wennberg, P. O.; Kim, M. J.; Ryerson, T. B.; Hanisco, T. F.; Diskin, G. S.; Daube, B. C.; Commane, R.; McKain, K.; Apel, E. C.; Blake, N. J.; Blake, D. R.; Elkins, J. W.; Hall, S.; Steenrod, S.; Strahan, S. E.; Lamarque, J. F.; Fiore, A. M.; Horowitz, L. W.; Murray, L. T.; Mao, J.; Shindell, D. T.; Wofsy, S. C.

2017-12-01

The NASA Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom) is building a photochemical climatology of the remote troposphere based on objective sampling and profiling transects over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. These statistics provide direct tests of chemistry-climate models. The choice of species focuses on those controlling primary reactivity (a.k.a. oxidative state) of the troposphere, specifically chemical tendencies of O3 and CH4. These key species include, inter alia, O3, CH4, CO, C2H6, other alkanes, alkenes, aromatics, NOx, HNO3, HO2NO2, PAN, other organic nitrates, H2O, HCHO, H2O2, CH3OOH. Three of the four ATom deployments are now complete, and data from the first two (ATom-1 & -2) have been released as of this talk (see espoarchive.nasa.gov/archive/browse/atom). The statistical distributions of key species are presented as 1D and 2D probability densities (PDs) and we focus here on the tropical and mid-latitude regions of the Pacific during ATom-1 (Aug) and -2 (Feb). PDs are computed from ATom observations and 6 global chemistry models over the tropospheric depth (0-12 km) and longitudinal extent of the observations. All data are weighted to achieve equal mass-weighting by latitude regimes to account for spatial sampling biases. The models are used to calculate the reactivity in each ATom air parcel. Reweighting parcels with loss of CH4 or production of O3, for example, allows us to identify which air parcels are most influential, including assessment of the importance of fine pollution layers in the most remote troposphere. Another photochemical climatology developed from ATom, and used to test models, includes the effect of clouds on photolysis rates. The PDs and reactivity-weighted PDs reveal important seasonal differences and similarities between the two campaigns and also show which species may be most important in controlling reactivities. They clearly identify some very specific failings in the modeled climatologies and help us evaluate the chemical

Timeslice experiments for understanding regional climate projections: applications to the tropical hydrological cycle and European winter circulation

Science.gov (United States)

Chadwick, Robin; Douville, Hervé; Skinner, Christopher B.

2017-11-01

A set of atmosphere-only timeslice experiments are described, designed to examine the processes that cause regional climate change and inter-model uncertainty in coupled climate model responses to CO_2 forcing. The timeslice experiments are able to reproduce the pattern of regional climate change in the coupled models, and are applied here to two cases where inter-model uncertainty in future projections is large: the tropical hydrological cycle, and European winter circulation. In tropical forest regions, the plant physiological effect is the largest cause of hydrological cycle change in the two models that represent this process. This suggests that the CMIP5 ensemble mean may be underestimating the magnitude of water cycle change in these regions, due to the inclusion of models without the plant effect. SST pattern change is the dominant cause of precipitation and circulation change over the tropical oceans, and also appears to contribute to inter-model uncertainty in precipitation change over tropical land regions. Over Europe and the North Atlantic, uniform SST increases drive a poleward shift of the storm-track. However this does not consistently translate into an overall polewards storm-track shift, due to large circulation responses to SST pattern change, which varies across the models. Coupled model SST biases influence regional rainfall projections in regions such as the Maritime Continent, and so projections in these regions should be treated with caution.

Climatology and interannual variability of dynamic variables in multiple reanalyses evaluated by the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. S. Long

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Two of the most basic parameters generated from a reanalysis are temperature and winds. Temperatures in the reanalyses are derived from conventional (surface and balloon, aircraft, and satellite observations. Winds are observed by conventional systems, cloud tracked, and derived from height fields, which are in turn derived from the vertical temperature structure. In this paper we evaluate as part of the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP the temperature and wind structure of all the recent and past reanalyses. This evaluation is mainly among the reanalyses themselves, but comparisons against independent observations, such as HIRDLS and COSMIC temperatures, are also presented. This evaluation uses monthly mean and 2.5° zonal mean data sets and spans the satellite era from 1979–2014. There is very good agreement in temperature seasonally and latitudinally among the more recent reanalyses (CFSR, MERRA, ERA-Interim, JRA-55, and MERRA-2 between the surface and 10 hPa. At lower pressures there is increased variance among these reanalyses that changes with season and latitude. This variance also changes during the time span of these reanalyses with greater variance during the TOVS period (1979–1998 and less variance afterward in the ATOVS period (1999–2014. There is a distinct change in the temperature structure in the middle and upper stratosphere during this transition from TOVS to ATOVS systems. Zonal winds are in greater agreement than temperatures and this agreement extends to lower pressures than the temperatures. Older reanalyses (NCEP/NCAR, NCEP/DOE, ERA-40, JRA-25 have larger temperature and zonal wind disagreement from the more recent reanalyses. All reanalyses to date have issues analysing the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO winds. Comparisons with Singapore QBO winds show disagreement in the amplitude of the westerly and easterly anomalies. The disagreement with Singapore winds improves with the transition from

Links between circulation indices and precipitation in the Mediterranean in an ensemble of regional climate models

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Beranová, Romana; Kyselý, Jan

2016-01-01