Articles | Volume 4, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-4-189-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-4-189-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Vortex streets to the lee of Madeira in a kilometre-resolution regional climate model
Qinggang Gao
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
now at: Ice Dynamics and Paleoclimate, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom
now at: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Christian Zeman
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Jesus Vergara-Temprado
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
now at: UBS, Zurich, Switzerland
Daniela C. A. Lima
Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL), Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal
Peter Molnar
Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Christoph Schär
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 863–886, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-863-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-863-2025, 2025
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Stefano Ubbiali, Christian Kühnlein, Christoph Schär, Linda Schlemmer, Thomas C. Schulthess, Michael Staneker, and Heini Wernli
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Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 5573–5586, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-5573-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-5573-2024, 2024
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The Cryosphere, 18, 683–703, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-683-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-683-2024, 2024
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Pedro M. M. Soares, Frederico Johannsen, Daniela C. A. Lima, Gil Lemos, Virgílio A. Bento, and Angelina Bushenkova
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 229–259, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-229-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-229-2024, 2024
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Weather Clim. Dynam., 4, 905–926, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-4-905-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-4-905-2023, 2023
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Eleonora Dallan, Francesco Marra, Giorgia Fosser, Marco Marani, Giuseppe Formetta, Christoph Schär, and Marco Borga
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 1133–1149, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1133-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1133-2023, 2023
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Convection-permitting climate models could represent future changes in extreme short-duration precipitation, which is critical for risk management. We use a non-asymptotic statistical method to estimate extremes from 10 years of simulations in an orographically complex area. Despite overall good agreement with rain gauges, the observed decrease of hourly extremes with elevation is not fully represented by the model. Climate model adjustment methods should consider the role of orography.
Roman Brogli, Christoph Heim, Jonas Mensch, Silje Lund Sørland, and Christoph Schär
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 907–926, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-907-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-907-2023, 2023
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The pseudo-global-warming (PGW) approach is a downscaling methodology that imposes the large-scale GCM-based climate change signal on the boundary conditions of a regional climate simulation. It offers several benefits in comparison to conventional downscaling. We present a detailed description of the methodology, provide companion software to facilitate the preparation of PGW simulations, and present validation and sensitivity studies.
Fabian Walter, Elias Hodel, Erik S. Mannerfelt, Kristen Cook, Michael Dietze, Livia Estermann, Michaela Wenner, Daniel Farinotti, Martin Fengler, Lukas Hammerschmidt, Flavia Hänsli, Jacob Hirschberg, Brian McArdell, and Peter Molnar
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Debris flows are dangerous sediment–water mixtures in steep terrain. Their formation takes place in poorly accessible terrain where instrumentation cannot be installed. Here we propose to monitor such source terrain with an autonomous drone for mapping sediments which were left behind by debris flows or may contribute to future events. Short flight intervals elucidate changes of such sediments, providing important information for landscape evolution and the likelihood of future debris flows.
Christian R. Steger, Benjamin Steger, and Christoph Schär
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6817–6840, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6817-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6817-2022, 2022
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Silvan Ragettli, Tabea Donauer, Peter Molnar, Ron Delnoije, and Tobias Siegfried
Earth Surf. Dynam., 10, 797–815, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-10-797-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-10-797-2022, 2022
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This paper presents a novel methodology to identify and quantitatively analyze deposition and erosion patterns in ephemeral ponds or in perennial lakes with strong water level fluctuations. We apply this method to unravel the water and sediment balance of Lac Wégnia, a designated Ramsar site in Mali. The study can be a showcase for monitoring Sahelian lakes using remote sensing data, as it sheds light on the actual drivers of change in Sahelian lakes.
Miguel Nogueira, Alexandra Hurduc, Sofia Ermida, Daniela C. A. Lima, Pedro M. M. Soares, Frederico Johannsen, and Emanuel Dutra
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5949–5965, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5949-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5949-2022, 2022
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We evaluated the quality of the ERA5 reanalysis representation of the urban heat island (UHI) over the city of Paris and performed a set of offline runs using the SURFEX land surface model. They were compared with observations (satellite and in situ). The SURFEX-TEB runs showed the best performance in representing the UHI, reducing its bias significantly. We demonstrate the ability of the SURFEX-TEB framework to simulate urban climate, which is crucial for studying climate change in cities.
Anne Sophie Daloz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Priscilla Mooney, Susanna Strada, Diana Rechid, Edouard L. Davin, Eleni Katragkou, Nathalie de Noblet-Ducoudré, Michal Belda, Tomas Halenka, Marcus Breil, Rita M. Cardoso, Peter Hoffmann, Daniela C. A. Lima, Ronny Meier, Pedro M. M. Soares, Giannis Sofiadis, Gustav Strandberg, Merja H. Toelle, and Marianne T. Lund
The Cryosphere, 16, 2403–2419, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2403-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2403-2022, 2022
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Priscilla A. Mooney, Diana Rechid, Edouard L. Davin, Eleni Katragkou, Natalie de Noblet-Ducoudré, Marcus Breil, Rita M. Cardoso, Anne Sophie Daloz, Peter Hoffmann, Daniela C. A. Lima, Ronny Meier, Pedro M. M. Soares, Giannis Sofiadis, Susanna Strada, Gustav Strandberg, Merja H. Toelle, and Marianne T. Lund
The Cryosphere, 16, 1383–1397, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1383-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1383-2022, 2022
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We use multiple regional climate models to show that afforestation in sub-polar and alpine regions reduces the radiative impact of snow albedo on the atmosphere, reduces snow cover, and delays the start of the snowmelt season. This is important for local communities that are highly reliant on snowpack for water resources and winter tourism. However, models disagree on the amount of change particularly when snow is melting. This shows that more research is needed on snow–vegetation interactions.
Christian Zeman and Christoph Schär
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 3183–3203, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-3183-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-3183-2022, 2022
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Our atmosphere is a chaotic system, where even a tiny change can have a big impact. This makes it difficult to assess if small changes, such as the move to a new hardware architecture, will significantly affect a weather and climate model. We present a methodology that allows to objectively verify this. The methodology is applied to several test cases, showing a high sensitivity. Results also show that a major system update of the underlying supercomputer did not significantly affect our model.
Roman Brogli, Silje Lund Sørland, Nico Kröner, and Christoph Schär
Weather Clim. Dynam., 2, 1093–1110, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-1093-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-1093-2021, 2021
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In a warmer future climate, climate simulations predict that some land areas will experience excessive warming during summer. We show that the excessive summer warming is related to the vertical distribution of warming within the atmosphere. In regions characterized by excessive warming, much of the warming occurs close to the surface. In other regions, most of the warming is redistributed to higher levels in the atmosphere, which weakens the surface warming.
Elena Leonarduzzi, Brian W. McArdell, and Peter Molnar
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 5937–5950, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5937-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-5937-2021, 2021
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Landslides are a dangerous natural hazard affecting alpine regions, calling for effective warning systems. Here we consider different approaches for the prediction of rainfall-induced shallow landslides at the regional scale, based on open-access datasets and operational hydrological forecasting systems. We find antecedent wetness useful to improve upon the classical rainfall thresholds and the resolution of the hydrological model used for its estimate to be a critical aspect.
Jacob Hirschberg, Alexandre Badoux, Brian W. McArdell, Elena Leonarduzzi, and Peter Molnar
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2773–2789, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2773-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2773-2021, 2021
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Debris-flow prediction is often based on rainfall thresholds, but uncertainty assessments are rare. We established rainfall thresholds using two approaches and find that 25 debris flows are needed for uncertainties to converge in an Alpine basin and that the suitable method differs for regional compared to local thresholds. Finally, we demonstrate the potential of a statistical learning algorithm to improve threshold performance. These findings are helpful for early warning system development.
Daniel Regenass, Linda Schlemmer, Elena Jahr, and Christoph Schär
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-426, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-426, 2021
Manuscript not accepted for further review
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Weather and climate models need to represent the water cycle on land in order to provide accurate estimates of moisture and energy exchange between the land and the atmosphere. Infiltration of water into the soil is often modeled with an equation describing water transport in porous media. Here, we point out some challenges arising in the numerical solution of this equation and show the consequences for the representation of the water cycle in modern weather and climate models.
Silje Lund Sørland, Roman Brogli, Praveen Kumar Pothapakula, Emmanuele Russo, Jonas Van de Walle, Bodo Ahrens, Ivonne Anders, Edoardo Bucchignani, Edouard L. Davin, Marie-Estelle Demory, Alessandro Dosio, Hendrik Feldmann, Barbara Früh, Beate Geyer, Klaus Keuler, Donghyun Lee, Delei Li, Nicole P. M. van Lipzig, Seung-Ki Min, Hans-Jürgen Panitz, Burkhardt Rockel, Christoph Schär, Christian Steger, and Wim Thiery
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 5125–5154, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5125-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5125-2021, 2021
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We review the contribution from the CLM-Community to regional climate projections following the CORDEX framework over Europe, South Asia, East Asia, Australasia, and Africa. How the model configuration, horizontal and vertical resolutions, and choice of driving data influence the model results for the five domains is assessed, with the purpose of aiding the planning and design of regional climate simulations in the future.
Christian Zeman, Nils P. Wedi, Peter D. Dueben, Nikolina Ban, and Christoph Schär
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 4617–4639, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-4617-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-4617-2021, 2021
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Kilometer-scale atmospheric models allow us to partially resolve thunderstorms and thus improve their representation. We present an intercomparison between two distinct atmospheric models for 2 summer days with heavy thunderstorms over Europe. We show the dependence of precipitation and vertical wind speed on spatial and temporal resolution and also discuss the possible influence of the system of equations, numerical methods, and diffusion in the models.
Marius G. Floriancic, Wouter R. Berghuijs, Tobias Jonas, James W. Kirchner, and Peter Molnar
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 5423–5438, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5423-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5423-2020, 2020
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Low river flows affect societies and ecosystems. Here we study how precipitation and potential evapotranspiration shape low flows across a network of 380 Swiss catchments. Low flows in these rivers typically result from below-average precipitation and above-average potential evapotranspiration. Extreme low flows result from long periods of the combined effects of both drivers.
Marie-Estelle Demory, Ségolène Berthou, Jesús Fernández, Silje L. Sørland, Roman Brogli, Malcolm J. Roberts, Urs Beyerle, Jon Seddon, Rein Haarsma, Christoph Schär, Erasmo Buonomo, Ole B. Christensen, James M. Ciarlo ̀, Rowan Fealy, Grigory Nikulin, Daniele Peano, Dian Putrasahan, Christopher D. Roberts, Retish Senan, Christian Steger, Claas Teichmann, and Robert Vautard
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 5485–5506, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5485-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5485-2020, 2020
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Now that global climate models (GCMs) can run at similar resolutions to regional climate models (RCMs), one may wonder whether GCMs and RCMs provide similar regional climate information. We perform an evaluation for daily precipitation distribution in PRIMAVERA GCMs (25–50 km resolution) and CORDEX RCMs (12–50 km resolution) over Europe. We show that PRIMAVERA and CORDEX simulate similar distributions. Considering both datasets at such a resolution results in large benefits for impact studies.
Elena Leonarduzzi and Peter Molnar
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 2905–2919, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2905-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-2905-2020, 2020
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Landslides are a natural hazard that affects alpine regions. Here we focus on rainfall-induced shallow landslides and one of the most widely used approaches for their predictions: rainfall thresholds. We design several comparisons utilizing a landslide database and rainfall records in Switzerland. We find that using daily rather than hourly rainfall might be a better option in some circumstances, and mean annual precipitation and antecedent wetness can improve predictions at the regional scale.
Stefan Rüdisühli, Michael Sprenger, David Leutwyler, Christoph Schär, and Heini Wernli
Weather Clim. Dynam., 1, 675–699, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-675-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-675-2020, 2020
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Most precipitation over Europe is linked to low-pressure systems, cold fronts, warm fronts, or high-pressure systems. Based on a massive computer simulation able to resolve thunderstorms, we quantify in detail how much precipitation these weather systems produced during 2000–2008. We find distinct seasonal and regional differences, such as fronts precipitating a lot in fall and winter over the North Atlantic but high-pressure systems mostly in summer over the continent by way of thunderstorms.
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Short summary
We developed a vortex identification algorithm for realistic atmospheric simulations. The algorithm enabled us to obtain a climatology of vortex shedding from Madeira Island for a 10-year simulation period. This first objective climatological analysis of vortex streets shows consistency with observed atmospheric conditions. The analysis shows a pronounced annual cycle with an increasing vortex shedding rate from April to August and a sudden decrease in September.
We developed a vortex identification algorithm for realistic atmospheric simulations. The...