Articles | Volume 4, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-4-701-2023
© 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-4-701-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
14 Aug 2023
Research article |
| 14 Aug 2023
| 14 Aug 2023
Validation of boreal summer tropical–extratropical causal links in seasonal forecasts
Department of Water, Environment, Construction and Safety,
Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, 39114 Magdeburg, Germany
Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
Dim Coumou
Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Department of Water and Climate
Risk, VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1081 HV, the Netherlands
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, 3730 AE, the Netherlands
Bart van den Hurk
Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Department of Water and Climate
Risk, VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1081 HV, the Netherlands
Department of Climate Adaptation, Deltares, Delft, 2629 HV,
the Netherlands
Antje Weisheimer
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, RG2 9AX, United Kingdom
Department of Physics (AOPP), National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 4BH, United Kingdom
Andrew G. Turner
National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading,
Reading, RG6 6ES, United Kingdom
Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6ES,
United Kingdom
Reik V. Donner
Department of Water, Environment, Construction and Safety,
Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, 39114 Magdeburg, Germany
Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
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Manuscript not accepted for further review
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Northern Hemisphere winter weather is influenced by the strength of westerly winds 30 km above the surface, the so-called polar vortex. Eurasian autumn snow cover is thought to modulate the polar vortex. So far, however, the modeled influence of snow on the polar vortex did not fit the observed influence. By analyzing a model experiment for the time span of 110 years, we could show that the causality of this impact is indeed sound and snow cover can weaken the polar vortex.
Henrique M. D. Goulart, Karin van der Wiel, Christian Folberth, Juraj Balkovic, and Bart van den Hurk
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1503–1527, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1503-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1503-2021, 2021
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Agriculture is sensitive to weather conditions and to climate change. We identify the weather conditions linked to soybean failures and explore changes related to climate change. Additionally, we build future versions of a historical extreme season under future climate scenarios. Results show that soybean failures are likely to increase with climate change. Future events with similar physical conditions to the extreme season are not expected to increase, but events with similar impacts are.
Raed Hamed, Anne F. Van Loon, Jeroen Aerts, and Dim Coumou
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1371–1391, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1371-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1371-2021, 2021
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Soy yields in the US are affected by climate variability. We identify the main within-season climate drivers and highlight potential compound events and associated agricultural impacts. Our results show that soy yields are most negatively influenced by the combination of high temperature and low soil moisture during the summer crop reproductive period. Furthermore, we highlight the role of temperature and moisture coupling across the year in generating these hot–dry extremes and linked impacts.
Tommaso Alberti, Reik V. Donner, and Stéphane Vannitsem
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 837–855, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-837-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-837-2021, 2021
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We provide a novel approach to diagnose the strength of the ocean–atmosphere coupling by using both a reduced order model and reanalysis data. Our findings suggest the ocean–atmosphere dynamics presents a rich variety of features, moving from a chaotic to a coherent coupled dynamics, mainly attributed to the atmosphere and only marginally to the ocean. Our observations suggest further investigations in characterizing the occurrence and spatial dependency of the ocean–atmosphere coupling.
Víctor M. Santos, Mercè Casas-Prat, Benjamin Poschlod, Elisa Ragno, Bart van den Hurk, Zengchao Hao, Tímea Kalmár, Lianhua Zhu, and Husain Najafi
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 3595–3615, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-3595-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-3595-2021, 2021
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We present an application of multivariate statistical models to assess compound flooding events in a managed reservoir. Data (from a previous study) were obtained from a physical-based hydrological model driven by a regional climate model large ensemble, providing a time series expanding up to 800 years in length that ensures stable statistics. The length of the data set allows for a sensitivity assessment of the proposed statistical framework to natural climate variability.
Sarah Sparrow, Andrew Bowery, Glenn D. Carver, Marcus O. Köhler, Pirkka Ollinaho, Florian Pappenberger, David Wallom, and Antje Weisheimer
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 3473–3486, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-3473-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-3473-2021, 2021
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This paper describes how the research version of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ Integrated Forecast System is combined with climateprediction.net’s public volunteer computing resource to develop OpenIFS@home. Thousands of volunteer personal computers simulated slightly different realizations of Tropical Cyclone Karl to demonstrate the performance of the large-ensemble forecast. OpenIFS@Home offers researchers a new tool to study weather forecasts and related questions.
Sazzad Hossain, Hannah L. Cloke, Andrea Ficchì, Andrew G. Turner, and Elisabeth M. Stephens
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-97, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-97, 2021
Manuscript not accepted for further review
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Hydrometeorological drivers are investigated to study three different flood types: long duration, rapid rise and high water level of the Brahmaputra river basin in Bangladesh. Our results reveal that long duration floods have been driven by basin-wide rainfall whereas rapid rate of rise due to more localized rainfall. We find that recent record high water levels are not coincident with extreme river flows. Understanding these drivers is key for flood forecasting and early warning.
Frederik Wolf, Aiko Voigt, and Reik V. Donner
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 353–366, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-353-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-353-2021, 2021
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In our work, we employ complex networks to study the relation between the time mean position of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and sea surface temperature (SST) variability. We show that the information hidden in different spatial SST correlation patterns, which we access utilizing complex networks, is strongly correlated with the time mean position of the ITCZ. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion on drivers of the annual migration of the ITCZ.
Frederik Wolf, Ugur Ozturk, Kevin Cheung, and Reik V. Donner
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 295–312, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-295-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-295-2021, 2021
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Motivated by a lacking onset prediction scheme, we examine the temporal evolution of synchronous heavy rainfall associated with the East Asian Monsoon System employing a network approach. We find, that the evolution of the Baiu front is associated with the formation of a spatially separated double band of synchronous rainfall. Furthermore, we identify the South Asian Anticyclone and the North Pacific Subtropical High as the main drivers, which have been assumed to be independent previously.
Jonathan K. P. Shonk, Andrew G. Turner, Amulya Chevuturi, Laura J. Wilcox, Andrea J. Dittus, and Ed Hawkins
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 14903–14915, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14903-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14903-2020, 2020
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We use a set of model simulations of the 20th century to demonstrate that the uncertainty in the cooling effect of man-made aerosol emissions has a wide range of impacts on global monsoons. For the weakest cooling, the impact of aerosol is overpowered by greenhouse gas (GHG) warming and monsoon rainfall increases in the late 20th century. For the strongest cooling, aerosol impact dominates over GHG warming, leading to reduced monsoon rainfall, particularly from 1950 to 1980.
Liang Guo, Ruud J. van der Ent, Nicholas P. Klingaman, Marie-Estelle Demory, Pier Luigi Vidale, Andrew G. Turner, Claudia C. Stephan, and Amulya Chevuturi
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 6011–6028, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6011-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6011-2020, 2020
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Precipitation over East Asia simulated in the Met Office Unified Model is compared with observations. Moisture sources of EA precipitation are traced using a moisture tracking model. Biases in moisture sources are linked to biases in precipitation. Using the tracking model, changes in moisture sources can be attributed to changes in SST, circulation and associated evaporation. This proves that the method used in this study is useful to identify the causes of biases in regional precipitation.
Christopher H. O'Reilly, Daniel J. Befort, and Antje Weisheimer
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 1033–1049, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1033-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1033-2020, 2020
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This study examines how the output of large single-model ensembles can be calibrated using observational data to provide improved future projections over Europe. Using an out-of-sample
imperfect modeltest, in which calibration techniques are applied to individual climate model realisations, these techniques are shown to generally improve the reliability of European climate projections for the next 40 years, particularly for regional surface temperature.
Maialen Iturbide, José M. Gutiérrez, Lincoln M. Alves, Joaquín Bedia, Ruth Cerezo-Mota, Ezequiel Cimadevilla, Antonio S. Cofiño, Alejandro Di Luca, Sergio Henrique Faria, Irina V. Gorodetskaya, Mathias Hauser, Sixto Herrera, Kevin Hennessy, Helene T. Hewitt, Richard G. Jones, Svitlana Krakovska, Rodrigo Manzanas, Daniel Martínez-Castro, Gemma T. Narisma, Intan S. Nurhati, Izidine Pinto, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Bart van den Hurk, and Carolina S. Vera
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 2959–2970, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2959-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2959-2020, 2020
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We present an update of the IPCC WGI reference regions used in AR5 for the synthesis of climate change information. This revision was guided by the basic principles of climatic consistency and model representativeness (in particular for the new CMIP6 simulations). We also present a new dataset of monthly CMIP5 and CMIP6 spatially aggregated information using the new reference regions and describe a worked example of how to use this dataset to inform regional climate change studies.
Laura J. Wilcox, Zhen Liu, Bjørn H. Samset, Ed Hawkins, Marianne T. Lund, Kalle Nordling, Sabine Undorf, Massimo Bollasina, Annica M. L. Ekman, Srinath Krishnan, Joonas Merikanto, and Andrew G. Turner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 11955–11977, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11955-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11955-2020, 2020
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Projected changes in man-made aerosol range from large reductions to moderate increases in emissions until 2050. Rapid reductions between the present and the 2050s lead to enhanced increases in global and Asian summer monsoon precipitation relative to scenarios with continued increases in aerosol. Relative magnitude and spatial distribution of aerosol changes are particularly important for South Asian summer monsoon precipitation changes, affecting the sign of the trend in the coming decades.
Giorgia Di Capua, Jakob Runge, Reik V. Donner, Bart van den Hurk, Andrew G. Turner, Ramesh Vellore, Raghavan Krishnan, and Dim Coumou
Weather Clim. Dynam., 1, 519–539, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-519-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-519-2020, 2020
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We study the interactions between the tropical convective activity and the mid-latitude circulation in the Northern Hemisphere during boreal summer. We identify two circumglobal wave patterns with phase shifts corresponding to the South Asian and the western North Pacific monsoon systems at an intra-seasonal timescale. These patterns show two-way interactions in a causal framework at a weekly timescale and assess how El Niño affects these interactions.
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Short summary
Heavy rainfall in tropical regions interacts with mid-latitude circulation patterns, and this interaction can explain weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere during summer. In this analysis we detect these tropical–extratropical interaction pattern both in observational datasets and data obtained by atmospheric models and assess how well atmospheric models can reproduce the observed patterns. We find a good agreement although these relationships are weaker in model data.
Heavy rainfall in tropical regions interacts with mid-latitude circulation patterns, and this...
