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Now showing 1 - 10 of 19
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    Aerosol hygroscopicity parameter derived from the light scattering enhancement factor measurements in the North China Plain
    (Göttingen : Copernicus, 2014) Chen, J.; Zhao, C.S.; Ma, N.; Yan, P.
    The relative humidity (RH) dependence of aerosol light scattering is an essential parameter for accurate estimation of the direct radiative forcing induced by aerosol particles. Because of insufficient information on aerosol hygroscopicity in climate models, a more detailed parameterization of hygroscopic growth factors and resulting optical properties with respect to location, time, sources, aerosol chemistry and meteorology are urgently required. In this paper, a retrieval method to calculate the aerosol hygroscopicity parameter, κ, is proposed based on the in situ measured aerosol light scattering enhancement factor, namely f(RH), and particle number size distribution (PNSD) obtained from the HaChi (Haze in China) campaign. Measurements show that f(RH) increases sharply with increasing RH, and that the time variance of f(RH) is much greater at higher RH. A sensitivity analysis reveals that the f(RH) is more sensitive to the aerosol hygroscopicity than PNSD. f(RH) for polluted cases is distinctly higher than that for clean periods at a specific RH. The derived equivalent κ, combined with the PNSD measurements, is applied in the prediction of the cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentration. The predicted CCN number concentration with the derived equivalent κ agrees well with the measured ones, especially at high supersaturations. The proposed calculation algorithm of κ with the f(RH) measurements is demonstrated to be reasonable and can be widely applied.
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    Global and regional effects of land-use change on climate in 21st century simulations with interactive carbon cycle
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2014) Boysen, L.R.; Brovkin, V.; Arora, V.K.; Cadule, P.; De Noblet-Ducoudré, N.; Kato, E.; Pongratz, J.; Gayler, V.
    Biogeophysical (BGP) and biogeochemical (BGC) effects of land-use and land cover change (LULCC) are separated at the global and regional scales in new interactive CO2simulations for the 21st century. Results from four earth system models (ESMs) are analyzed for the future RCP8.5 scenario from simulations with and without land-use and land cover change (LULCC), contributing to the Land-Use and Climate, IDentification of robust impacts (LUCID) project. Over the period 2006-2100, LULCC causes the atmospheric CO2concentration to increase by 12, 22, and 66 ppm in CanESM2, MIROC-ESM, and MPI-ESM-LR, respectively. Statistically significant changes in global near-surface temperature are found in three models with a BGC-induced global mean annual warming between 0.07 and 0.23 K. BGP-induced responses are simulated by three models in areas of intense LULCC of varying sign and magnitude (between g 0.47 and 0.10 K). Modifications of the land carbon pool by LULCC are disentangled in accordance with processes that can lead to increases and decreases in this carbon pool. Global land carbon losses due to LULCC are simulated by all models: 218, 57, 35 and 34 Gt C by MPI-ESM-LR, MIROC-ESM, IPSL-CM5A-LR and CanESM2, respectively. On the contrary, the CO2-fertilization effect caused by elevated atmospheric CO2concentrations due to LULCC leads to a land carbon gain of 39 Gt C in MPI-ESM-LR and is almost negligible in the other models. A substantial part of the spread in models' responses to LULCC is attributed to the differences in implementation of LULCC (e.g., whether pastures or crops are simulated explicitly) and the simulation of specific processes. Simple idealized experiments with clear protocols for implementing LULCC in ESMs are needed to increase the understanding of model responses and the statistical significance of results, especially when analyzing the regional-scale impacts of LULCC.
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    Regional projections of temperature and precipitation changes: Robustness and uncertainty aspects
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2017) Piniewski, M.; Mezghani, A.; Szczésniak, M.; Kundzewicz, Z.W.
    This study presents the analysis of bias-corrected projections of changes in temperature and precipitation in the Vistula and Odra basins, covering approximately 90% of the Polish territory and small parts of neighbouring countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The ensemble of climate projections consists of nine regional climate model simulations from the EURO-CORDEX ensemble for two future periods 2021-2050 and 2071-2100, assuming two representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. The robustness is measured by the ensemble models' agreement on significant changes.We found a robust increase in the annual mean of daily minimum and maximum temperature, by 1-1.4 °C in the near future and by 1.9-3.8 °C in the far future (areal-means of the ensemble mean values). Higher increases are consistently associated with minimum temperature and the gradient of change goes from SWto NE regions. Seasonal projections of both temperature variables reflect lower robustness and suggest a higher future increase in winter temperatures than in other seasons, notably in the far future under RCP 8.5 (by more than 1 °C). However, changes in annual means of precipitation are uncertain and not robust in any of the analysed cases, even though the climate models agree well on the increase. This increase is intensified with rising global temperatures and varies from 5.5% in the near future under RCP 4.5 to 15.2%in the far future under RCP 8.5. Spatial variability is substantial, although quite variable between individual climate model simulations. Although seasonal means of precipitation are projected to considerably increase in all four combinations of RCPs and projection horizons for winter and spring, the high model spread reduces considerably the robustness, especially for the far future. In contrast, the ensemble members agree well that overall, the summer and autumn (with exception of the far future under RCP 8.5) precipitation will not undergo statistically significant changes.
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    Forests under climate change: Potential risks and opportunities
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Lasch-Born, P.; Suckow, F.; Gutsch, M.; Reyer, C.; Hauf, Y.; Murawski, A.; Pilz, T.
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    Uncertainty of biomass contributions from agriculture and forestry to renewable energy resources under climate change
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Gutsch, M.; Lasch-Born, P.; Lüttger, A.B.; Suckow, F.; Murawski, A.; Pilz, T.
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    MIS-11 duration key to disappearance of the Greenland ice sheet
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Robinson, A.; Alvarez-Solas, J.; Calov, R.; Ganopolski, A.; Montoya, M.
    Palaeo data suggest that Greenland must have been largely ice free during Marine Isotope Stage 11 (MIS-11). However, regional summer insolation anomalies were modest during this time compared to MIS-5e, when the Greenland ice sheet likely lost less volume. Thus it remains unclear how such conditions led to an almost complete disappearance of the ice sheet. Here we use transient climate-ice sheet simulations to simultaneously constrain estimates of regional temperature anomalies and Greenland's contribution to the MIS-11 sea-level highstand. We find that Greenland contributed 6.1 m (3.9-7.0 m, 95% credible interval) to sea level, ∼7 kyr after the peak in regional summer temperature anomalies of 2.8 °C (2.1-3.4 °C). The moderate warming produced a mean rate of mass loss in sea-level equivalent of only around 0.4 m per kyr, which means the long duration of MIS-11 interglacial conditions around Greenland was a necessary condition for the ice sheet to disappear almost completely.
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    Climate change impacts on hydrology and water resources
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Hattermann, F.F.; Huang, S.; Koch, H.
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    Evaluation of water balance components in the Elbe river catchment simulated by the regional climate model CCLM
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2014) Volkholz, J.; Grossman-Clarke, S.; Hattermann, F.F.; Böhm, U.
    For investigations of feedbacks between the hydrological cycle and the climate system, we assess the performance of the regional climate model CCLM in reconstructing the water balance of the Elbe river catchment. To this end long-term mean precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff are evaluated. Extremes (90th percentile) are also considered in the case of precipitation. The data are provided by a CCLM presentday simulation for Europe that was driven by large-scale global reanalyses. The quality of the model results is analyzed with respect to suitable reference data for the period 1970 to 1999. The principal components of the hydrological cycle and their seasonal variations were captured well. Basin accumulated, averaged daily precipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff differ by no more than 10% from observations. Larger deviations occur mainly in summer, and at specific areas.
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    Ensemble simulations for the RCP8.5-Scenario
    (Stuttgart : Gebrueder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2015) Gerstengarbe, F.-W.; Hoffmann, P.; Österle, H.; Werner, P.C.
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    The global aerosol-climate model echam6.3-ham2.3 -Part 1: Aerosol evaluation
    (Göttingen : Copernicus GmbH, 2019) Tegen, I.; Neubauer, D.; Ferrachat, S.; Drian, C.S.-L.; Bey, I.; Schutgens, N.; Stier, P.; Watson-Parris, D.; Stanelle, T.; Schmidt, H.; Rast, S.; Kokkola, H.; Schultz, M.; Schroeder, S.; Daskalakis, N.; Barthel, S.; Heinold, B.; Lohmann, U.
    We introduce and evaluate aerosol simulations with the global aerosol-climate model ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3, which is the aerosol component of the fully coupled aerosol-chemistry-climate model ECHAM-HAMMOZ. Both the host atmospheric climate model ECHAM6.3 and the aerosol model HAM2.3 were updated from previous versions. The updated version of the HAM aerosol model contains improved parameterizations of aerosol processes such as cloud activation, as well as updated emission fields for anthropogenic aerosol species and modifications in the online computation of sea salt and mineral dust aerosol emissions. Aerosol results from nudged and free-running simulations for the 10-year period 2003 to 2012 are compared to various measurements of aerosol properties. While there are regional deviations between the model and observations, the model performs well overall in terms of aerosol optical thickness, but may underestimate coarse-mode aerosol concentrations to some extent so that the modeled particles are smaller than indicated by the observations. Sulfate aerosol measurements in the US and Europe are reproduced well by the model, while carbonaceous aerosol species are biased low. Both mineral dust and sea salt aerosol concentrations are improved compared to previous versions of ECHAM-HAM. The evaluation of the simulated aerosol distributions serves as a basis for the suitability of the model for simulating aerosol-climate interactions in a changing climate.