Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Climate
Soil moisture modulation of midlatitude heat waves
Published: 2023-02-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Heat waves are broadly expected to increase in severity and frequency under climate change. Case studies highlight a number of physical mechanisms that play a role in present-day heat waves, which typically occur during a coalescence of anomalous atmospheric and land surface conditions. However, a unified model of heat wave physics is lacking, primarily owing to difficulty in disentangling the [...]
An Updated Parametrization of Algorithms to Retrieve the Diffuse Attenuation of Light in the Ocean from Remote Sensing and its Impact on Estimates of Net Primary Productivity
Published: 2023-02-10
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Environmental Sciences
We recently found a significant bias while validating frequently used ocean color algorithms retrieving the spectral diffuse attenuation coefficient (Kd(λ))(Begouen and Boss, 2022). Here we modify existing algorithms for Kd(λ) to remove the observed bias at Kd(490), and evaluate the impact on global and regional estimates of net primary production (NPP) using two different primary production [...]
Internal gravity waves generated by subglacial discharge: implications for tidewater glacier melt
Published: 2023-02-03
Subjects: Climate, Oceanography
Submarine melting has been implicated in the accelerated retreat of marine-terminating glaciers globally. Energetic ocean flows, such as subglacial discharge plumes, are known to enhance submarine melting in their immediate vicinity. Using observations and a large eddy simulation, we demonstrate that discharge plumes emit high-frequency internal gravity waves that propagate along glacier termini [...]
Benefit-cost ratios of CO2 removal strategies
Published: 2023-01-13
Subjects: Climate
Limiting global warming to 1.5$^\circ$C will very likely require, or to 2$^\circ$C may require, large-scale removal of carbon dioxide (CO$_2$) from the atmosphere. Many CO$_2$ removal strategies (CDRSs), or negative emissions technologies, have been proposed, which vary widely in both price per ton of CO$_2$ removed and storage timescale of this removed CO$_2$, as well as mechanism, maturity, [...]
Improving Shoreline Forecasting Models with Multi-Objective Genetic Programming
Published: 2023-01-10
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Climate, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Oceanography, Sedimentology, Statistical Models
Given the current context of climate change and increasing population densities at coastal zones, there is an increasing need to be able to predict the development of our coasts. Recent advances in artificial intelligence allow for automatic analysis of observational data. This work makes use of Symbolic Regression, a type of Machine Learning algorithm, to evolve interpretable shoreline [...]
Weakening of the Indian Ocean Dipole in the mid-Holocene due to the mean oceanic climatology change
Published: 2023-01-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Meteorology, Oceanography
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is one of the leading modes of interannual climate variability in the tropical Indian Ocean (IO). Paleoclimate provides real climate scenarios to examine IOD behaviors and the linkage to basic states. Based on 18 models from the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project phase 3 and 4 (PMIP 3/4), the IOD change from the preindustrial period to mid-Holocene is [...]
The Dry Sky: Futures for Humanity’s Modification of the Atmospheric Water Cycle
Published: 2022-12-22
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Fresh Water Studies, Hydrology, Meteorology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Humanity is modifying the atmospheric water cycle, via land use, climate change, air pollution, and weather modification. Given the implications of this, we present a theoretical framing of atmospheric water as an economic good. Historically, atmospheric water was tacitly considered a ‘public good’ since it was neither actively consumed (rival) nor controlled (exclusive). However, given [...]
Global methane pledge versus lower CO2 emissions
Published: 2022-12-05
Subjects: Climate
Methane (CH$_4$) is a potent greenhouse gas whose contribution to anthropogenic radiative forcing of the climate system is second only to carbon dioxide (CO$_2$). CH$_4$ emission reduction has become central to global climate mitigation policy, resulting most notably in the Global Methane Pledge (GMP), pledging a 30\% reduction of CH$_4$ emissions by 2030. Methane is, however, much shorter-lived [...]
Epitomic Data for Community Land Model Standalone Simulations for Prognostic Analyses of Tropical Mountain Glaciation and Lake Temperature in Pre-Industrial, Last Glacial Maximum, and Extreme Glacial Climates
Published: 2022-11-15
Subjects: Climate, Fresh Water Studies, Glaciology, Hydrology
Global climate models typically simulate climate at much larger spatial scales than tropical mountain glaciers and many of the world’s lakes. Yet some of the proxy data that can be used to validate models of past climate on land come from and are related to these geographic features. Validating global climate models using these proxies requires some method of downscaling global climate model [...]
North African dust absorbs less solar radiation than estimated by models and remote-sensing retrievals
Published: 2022-10-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate
Desert dust accounts for a large fraction of shortwave radiation absorbed by aerosols, which adds to the climate warming produced by greenhouse gases. However, it remains uncertain exactly how much shortwave radiation dust absorbs. We leverage in-situ measurements of dust single-scattering albedo to constrain absorption at mid-visible wavelength by North African dust, which accounts for [...]
Skilful forecasts of summer rainfall in the Yangtze River Basin from November
Published: 2022-10-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate
Variability in the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) brings the risk of heavy flooding or drought to the Yangtze River Basin, with potentially devastating impacts. Early forecasts of the likelihood of enhanced or reduced monsoon rainfall can enable better management of water and hydropower resources by decision-makers, supporting livelihoods and major economic and population centres across Eastern [...]
Deterministic icehouse and greenhouse climates throughout Earth history
Published: 2022-10-06
Subjects: Climate, Geochemistry
Some theories posit that icehouse (with polar ice sheets) and greenhouse (ice-free) states throughout Earth history are not deterministic, but bistable—both states may occur for the same level of radiative forcing. If correct, then the climate state that persists for millions of years can depend on which state already existed, giving the system a `memory’ effect. However, on these timescales the [...]
Characteristics of Dust Storms Generated by Trapped Waves in the Lee of Mountains
Published: 2022-09-29
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Dust storms are ubiquitous in the Earth's atmosphere, yet the physical processes underlying dust emission and subsequent transport are not always understood, in-part due to the wide variety of meteorological processes that can generate high winds and dust. Here we use in-situ measurements and numerical modeling to demonstrate that vertically trapped atmospheric waves generated by air flowing over [...]
All aboard! Earth system investigations with the CH2O-CHOO TRAIN v1.0
Published: 2022-09-24
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Models of the carbon cycle and climate on geologic (>10^4 year) timescales have improved tremendously in the last 50 years due to parallel advances in our understanding of the Earth system and the increase in computing power to simulate its key processes. Despite these advances, balancing the Earth System's vast complexity with a model's computational expense is a primary challenge in model [...]
Rapid estimation of climate-air quality interactions in integrated assessment using a response surface model
Published: 2022-09-15
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies
Air quality and climate change are substantial and linked sustainability challenges, and there is a need for improved tools to assess the implications of addressing them in combination. High-fidelity chemistry-climate simulations can capture combined climate-air quality responses to policy change, but computational cost has prevented integration of accurate air quality impacts into integrated [...]