Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
A newly reconciled data set for identifying sea level rise and variability in Dublin Bay
Published: 2020-05-28
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Sciences, Statistics and Probability
We provide an updated sea level dataset for Dublin for the period 1938 to 2016 at yearly resolution. Using a newly collated sea level record for Dublin Port, as well as two nearby tide gauges at Arklow and Howth Harbour, we perform data quality checks and calibration of the Dublin Port record by adjusting the biased high water level measurements that affect the overall calculation of mean sea [...]
Kilometer-scale sound speed structure that affects GNSS-A observation: Case study off the Kii channel
Published: 2020-05-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Global Navigation Satellite System-Acoustic ranging combination technique (GNSS-A) is a recently developed technology to precisely detect seafloor crustal deformation. This method can also estimate km-scale underwater sound speed structure (SSS) as a by-product of monitoring seafloor crustal deformation. This paper evaluates the validity of the spatial gradient and its temporal variation of [...]
Shining light on priming in euphotic sediments: Nutrient enrichment stimulates export of stored organic matter
Published: 2020-05-26
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Estuarine sediments are important sites for the interception, processing and retention of organic matter, prior to its export to the coastal oceans. Stimulated microbial co-metabolism (priming) potentially increases export of refractory organic matter through increased production of hydrolytic enzymes. By using the microphytobenthos community to directly introduce a pulse of labile carbon into [...]
UNSEEN trends: Detecting decadal changes in 100-year precipitation extremes
Published: 2020-05-26
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Climate, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Sample sizes of observed climate extremes are typically too small to reliably constrain non-stationary behaviour. To facilitate detection of non-stationarities in 100-year precipitation values over a short period of 35 years (1981-2015), we apply the UNprecedented Simulated Extreme ENsemble (UNSEEN) approach, by pooling ensemble members and lead times from the ECMWF seasonal prediction system [...]
A multi-control climate policy process for a trusted decision maker
Published: 2020-05-25
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Persistent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions threaten global climate goals and have prompted consideration of climate controls supplementary to emissions mitigation. We present an idealized model of optimally-controlled climate change, which is complementary to simpler analytical models and more comprehensive Integrated Assessment Models. We show that the four methods of controlling climate damage– [...]
Evaporative Resistance is of Equal Importance as Surface Albedo in High Latitude Surface Temperatures Due to Cloud Feedbacks
Published: 2020-05-25
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Arctic vegetation is known to influence Arctic surface temperatures through albedo. However, it is less clear how plant evaporative resistance and albedo independently influence surface climate at high latitudes. We use surface properties derived from two common Arctic tree types to simulate the climate response to a change in land surface albedo and evaporative resistance in factorial [...]
Quantification and interpretation of the climate variability record
Published: 2020-05-25
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This paper is currently in review for Global and Planetary Change. \\ The spectral view of variability is a compelling and adaptable tool for understanding variability of the climate. In the Mitchell (1976) seminal paper, it was used to express, on one graph with log scales, a very wide range of climate variations from millions of years to days. The spectral approach is particularly useful for [...]
Recent water mass changes reveal mechanisms of ocean warming
Published: 2020-05-19
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Over 90% of the build up of additional heat in the earth system over recent decades is contained in the ocean. Since 2006 new observational programs have revealed heterogeneous patterns of ocean heat content change. It is unclear how much of this heterogeneity is due to heat being added to and mixed within the ocean leading to material changes in water mass properties or due to changes in [...]
Human Health Benefits of the Minamata Convention on Mercury
Published: 2020-05-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Minamata Convention is a legally-binding international treaty aimed at reducing the anthropogenic release of mercury, a potent neurotoxin. However, its human health benefit has not been quantified on a global scale. Here we evaluate the Convention’s benefit by a coupled climate-atmosphere-land-ocean-ecosystem model and a human mercury exposure component that considers all food categories. We [...]
Increasing economic drought impacts in Europe with anthropogenic warming
Published: 2020-05-13
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics
While climate change will alter the distribution in time and space of water, quantifications of drought risk in view of global warming remain little explored. Here, we show that in Europe drought damages could strongly increase with global warming and cause a strong regional imbalance in future drought impacts. In the absence of climate action (4°C in 2100 and no adaptation) annual drought losses [...]
A machine learning approach for ozone forecasting and its application for Kennewick, WA
Published: 2020-05-13
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Chemical transport models (CTM) are widely used for air quality modeling, but these models miss forecasting some air pollution events, and require a lot of computational power. In Kennewick, WA, elevated O3 episodes can occur during the summer and early fall, but the CTM-based operational forecasting system (AIRPACT) struggles to capture them. This research used the 2015 – 2018 historical [...]
COVID-19-related drop in anthropogenic aerosol emissions in China and corresponding cloud and climate effects
Published: 2020-05-11
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to massive disruptions of public life on a global scale. To halt the spread of the disease, China temporarily shut down parts of the manufacturing and transportation sectors. Associated anthropogenic aerosol emissions in February 2020 plunged to record lows, causing a temporary improvement of air quality with uncertain effects on cloud formation, atmospheric [...]
Asian monsoon amplifies semi-direct effect of biomass burning aerosols on low cloud formation
Published: 2020-05-11
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Low clouds play a key role in the Earth-atmosphere energy balance and influence agricultural production and solar-power generation. Smoke aloft has been found to enhance marine stratocu-mulus over the Southeast Atlantic in austral spring through aerosol-cloud interactions, but its role in regions with strong human activities and complex monsoon circulation remains unclear. Here we show that [...]
Macroscopic flow disequilibrium over aeolian dune fields
Published: 2020-05-08
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Aeolian dune fields are self-organized patterns formed by wind-blown sand. Dunes are topographic roughness elements that impose drag on the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), creating a natural coupling between form and flow. While the steady-state influence of drag on the ABL is well studied, non-equilibrium effects due to roughness transitions are less understood. Here we examine the large-scale [...]
How waves are accelerating global coastal overtopping
Published: 2020-05-08
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The world’s coastal areas are home to about 10% of the human population and support unique and dynamic ecosystems, offering € trillions worth of environmental and societal benefits. Climate change and anthropogenic pressures are however exacerbating devastating hazards such as episodic coastal flooding, the magnitudes of which remain highly uncertain to date. This study, for the first time, [...]