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    Investigating Mesozoic Climate Trends and Sensitivities With a Large Ensemble of Climate Model Simulations
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) Landwehrs, Jan; Feulner, Georg; Petri, Stefan; Sames, Benjamin; Wagreich, Michael
    The Mesozoic era (āˆ¼252 to 66 million years ago) was a key interval in Earth's evolution toward its modern state, witnessing the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea and significant biotic innovations like the early evolution of mammals. Plate tectonic dynamics drove a fundamental climatic transition from the early Mesozoic supercontinent toward the Late Cretaceous fragmented continental configuration. Here, key aspects of Mesozoic long-term environmental changes are assessed in a climate model ensemble framework. We analyze so far the most extended ensemble of equilibrium climate states simulated for evolving Mesozoic boundary conditions covering the period from 255 to 60 Ma in 5ā€‰Myr timesteps. Global mean temperatures are generally found to be elevated above the present and exhibit a baseline warming trend driven by rising sea levels and increasing solar luminosity. Warm (Triassic and mid-Cretaceous) and cool (Jurassic and end-Cretaceous) anomalies result from pCO2 changes indicated by different reconstructions. Seasonal and zonal temperature contrasts as well as continental aridity show an overall decrease from the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous. Meridional temperature gradients are reduced at higher global temperatures and less land area in the high latitudes. With systematic sensitivity experiments, the influence of paleogeography, sea level, vegetation patterns, pCO2, solar luminosity, and orbital configuration on these trends is investigated. For example, long-term seasonality trends are driven by paleogeography, but orbital cycles could have had similar-scale effects on shorter timescales. Global mean temperatures, continental humidity, and meridional temperature gradients are, however, also strongly affected by pCO2.
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    Evidence for the Inā€Situ Generation of Plasma Depletion Structures Over the Transition Region of Geomagnetic Lowā€Mid Latitude
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) Sivakandan, M.; Mondal, S.; Sarkhel, S.; Chakrabarty, D.; Sunil Krishna, M.V.; Upadhayaya, A.K.; Shinbori, A.; Sori, T.; Kannaujiya, S.; Champati Ray, P.K.
    On a geomagnetic quiet night of October 29, 2018, we captured an observational evidence of the onset of dark band structures within the field-of-view of an all-sky airglow imager operating at 630.0 nm over a geomagnetic low-mid latitude transition region, Hanle, Leh Ladakh. Simultaneous ionosonde observations over New Delhi shows the occurrence of spread-F in the ionograms. Additionally, virtual and peak height indicate vertical upliftment in the F layer altitude and reduction in the ionospheric peak frequency were also observed when the dark band pass through the ionosonde location. All these results confirmed that the observed depletions are indeed associated with ionospheric F region plasma irregularities. The rate of total electron content index (ROTI) indicates the absence of plasma bubble activities over the equatorial/low latitude region which confirms that the observed event is a mid-latitude plasma depletion. Our calculations reveal that the growth time of the plasma depletion is āˆ¼2 h if one considers only the Perkins instability mechanism. This is not consistent with the present observations as the plasma depletion developed within āˆ¼25 min. By invoking possible Es layer instabilities and associated E-F region coupling, we show that the growth rate increases roughly by an order of magnitude. This strongly suggests that the Cosgrove and Tsunoda mechanism may be simultaneously operational in this case. Furthermore, it is also suggested that reduced F region flux-tube integrated conductivity in the southern part of onset region created conducive background conditions for the growth of the plasma depletion on this night.
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    Multiā€Point Measurements of the Plasma Properties Inside an Aurora From the SPIDER Sounding Rocket
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) Giono, Gabriel; Ivchenko, Nickolay; Sergienko, Tima; BrƤndstrƶm, Urban
    The Small Payloads for Investigation of Disturbances in Electrojet by Rockets (SPIDER) sounding rocket was launched on February 2nd, 2016 (21:09 UT), deploying 10 free falling units (FFUs) inside a westward traveling auroral surge. Each FFUs deployed spherical electric field and Langmuir probes on wire-booms, providing in situ multi-point recordings of the electric field and plasma properties. The analytical retrieval of the plasma parameters, namely the electron density, electron temperature and plasma potential, from the Langmuir probe measurements was non-trivial due to sheath effects and detailed explanation are discussed in this article. An empirical assumption on the sheath thickness was required, which was confirmed by simulating the plasma environment around the FFU using the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS). In addition, the retrieved electron density and temperature are also in agreement with the simultaneous incoherent scatter radar measurements from the EISCAT facility. These two independent confirmations provided a good level of confidence in the plasma parameters obtained from the FFUs, and events observed during the flight are discussed in more details. Hints of drift-wave instabilities and increased currents inside a region of enhanced density were observed by the FFUs.
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    Hemispheric and Seasonal Contrast in Cloud Thermodynamic Phase From Aā€Train Spaceborne Instruments
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) Villanueva, Diego; Senf, Fabian; Tegen, Ina
    Aerosol-cloud interactions are an important source of uncertainty in current climate models. To understand and quantify the influence of ice-nucleating particles in cloud glaciation, it is crucial to have a reliable estimation of the hemispheric and seasonal contrast in cloud top phase, which is believed to result from the higher dust aerosol loading in boreal spring. For this reason, we locate and quantify these contrasts by combining three different A-Train cloud-phase products for the period 2007ā€“2010. These products rely on a spaceborne lidar, a lidar-radar synergy, and a radiometer-polarimeter synergy. We show that the cloud-phase from the product combination is more reliable and that the estimation of the hemispheric and seasonal contrast has a lower error compared to the individual products. To quantify the contrast in cloud-phase, we use the hemispheric difference in ice cloud frequency normalized by the liquid cloud frequency in the southern hemisphere between āˆ’42 Ā°C and 0 Ā°C. In the midlatitudes, from āˆ’15 to āˆ’30 Ā°C, the hemispheric contrasts increase with decreasing temperature. At āˆ’30 Ā°C, the hemispheric contrast varies from 29% to 39% for the individual cloud-phase products and from 52% to 73% for the product combination. Similarly, in the northern hemisphere, we assess the seasonal contrast between spring and fall normalized by the liquid cloud frequency during fall. At āˆ’30 Ā°C, the seasonal contrast ranges from 21% to 39% for the individual cloud-phase products and from 54% to 75% for the product combination.
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    Sources, Occurrence and Characteristics of Fluorescent Biological Aerosol Particles Measured Over the Pristine Southern Ocean
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) Moallemi, Alireza; Landwehr, Sebastian; Robinson, Charlotte; SimĆ³, Rafel; Zamanillo, Marina; Chen, Gang; Baccarini, Andrea; Schnaiter, Martin; Henning, Silvia; Modini, Robin L.; Gysel-Beer, Martin; Schmale, Julia
    In this study, we investigate the occurrence of primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP) over all sectors of the Southern Ocean (SO) based on a 90-day data set collected during the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE) in austral summer 2016-2017. Super-micrometer PBAP (1-16 Āµm diameter) were measured by a wide band integrated bioaerosol sensor (WIBS-4). Low (3Ļƒ) and high (9Ļƒ) fluorescence thresholds are used to obtain statistics on fluorescent and hyper-fluorescent PBAP, respectively. Our focus is on data obtained over the pristine ocean, that is, more than 200 km away from land. The results indicate that (hyper-)fluorescent PBAP are correlated to atmospheric variables associated with sea spray aerosol (SSA) particles (wind speed, total super-micrometer aerosol number concentration, chloride and sodium concentrations). This suggests that a main source of PBAP over the SO is SSA. The median percentage contribution of fluorescent and hyper-fluorescent PBAP to super-micrometer SSA was 1.6% and 0.13%, respectively. We demonstrate that the fraction of (hyper-)fluorescent PBAP to total super-micrometer particles positively correlates with concentrations of bacteria and several taxa of pythoplankton measured in seawater, indicating that marine biota concentrations modulate the PBAP source flux. We investigate the fluorescent properties of (hyper-)fluorescent PBAP for several events that occurred near land masses. We find that the fluorescence signal characteristics of particles near land is much more variable than over the pristine ocean. We conclude that the source and concentration of fluorescent PBAP over the open ocean is similar across all sampled sectors of the SO.
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    Using Principal Component Analysis of Satellite and Ground Magnetic Data to Model the Equatorial Electrojet and Derive Its Tidal Composition
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2022) Soares, Gabriel; Yamazaki, Yosuke; Morschhauser, Achim; Matzka, JĆ¼rgen; Pinheiro, Katia J.; Stolle, Claudia; Alken, Patrick; Yoshikawa, Akimasa; Hozumi, Kornyanat; Kulkarni, Atul; Supnithi, Pornchai
    The intensity of the equatorial electrojet (EEJ) shows temporal and spatial variability that is not yet fully understood nor accurately modeled. Atmospheric solar tides are among the main drivers of this variability but determining different tidal components and their respective time series is challenging. It requires good temporal and spatial coverage with observations, which, previously could only be achieved by accumulating data over many years. Here, we propose a new technique for modeling the EEJ based on principal component analysis (PCA) of a hybrid ground-satellite geomagnetic data set. The proposed PCA-based model (PCEEJ) represents the observed EEJ better than the climatological EEJM-2 model, especially when there is good local time separation among the satellites involved. The amplitudes of various solar tidal modes are determined from PCEEJ based tidal equation fitting. This allows to evaluate interannual and intraannual changes of solar tidal signatures in the EEJ. On average, the obtained time series of migrating and nonmigrating tides agree with the average climatology available from earlier work. A comparison of tidal signatures in the EEJ with tides derived from neutral atmosphere temperature observations show a remarkable correlation for nonmigrating tides such as DE3, DE2, DE4, and SW4. The results indicate that it is possible to obtain a meaningful EEJ spectrum related to solar tides for a relatively short time interval of 70 days.
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    The Dust Emission Potential of Agriculturalā€Like Firesā€”Theoretical Estimates From Two Conceptually Different Dust Emission Parameterizations
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) Wagner, R.; Schepanski, K.; Klose, M.
    Agricultural fires affecting grass-, crop- and shrublands represent a major, mainly anthropogenically driven disturbance of many ecosystems. In addition to emissions of carbonaceous aerosol, they were found to inject also mineral dust particles into the atmosphere. The fires can significantly modulate the near-surface wind patterns so that conditions suitable for dust emission occur. However, the exact emission mechanism has not been investigated so far, but is inevitable for the understanding of its impacts on the Earth system. Here, we test two dust emission parameterizations representing saltation bombardment (SALT) and direct aerodynamic dust entrainment by (convective) turbulence (convective turbulent dust emission, CTDE) in the context of fire-modulated wind patterns using large-eddy simulation with an idealized setup to represent typical agricultural fire settings. Favorable aerodynamic preconditions for the initialization of both emission processes are found, however, with sometimes significant differences in dust emission flux depending on specific wind and fire properties. The strong fire-induced modulations of the instantaneous momentum flux suggest that CTDE can be a very potent emission process in the fire vicinity. Nevertheless, fire impacts on the friction velocity can be significant too, so that dust emission through SALT is facilitated as well. Ultimately, the specific aerodynamic conditions within pyro-convectively modulated wind patterns require the development of a parameterization that can describe these unique fire-related dust emissions and their influencing factors properly. This will finally allow for considering fire-induced dust emissions in aerosol-atmosphere models and an investigation of its atmospheric impacts such as on the radiation budget.
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    Radar Observation of Extreme Vertical Drafts in the Polar Summer Mesosphere
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) Chau, J.L.; Marino, R.; Feraco, F.; Urco, J.M.; Baumgarten, G.; LĆ¼bken, F.ā€J.; Hocking, W.K.; Schult, C.; Renkwitz, T.; Latteck, R.
    The polar summer mesosphere is the Earth's coldest region, allowing the formation of mesospheric ice clouds. These ice clouds produce strong polar mesospheric summer echoes (PMSE) that are used as tracers of mesospheric dynamics. Here, we report the first observations of extreme vertical drafts (+/-50 ms [hoch]-1) in the mesosphere obtained from PMSE, characterized by velocities more than five standard deviations larger than the observed vertical wind variability. Using aperture synthesis radar imaging, the observed PMSE morphology resembles a solitary wave in a varicose mode, narrow along propagation (3ā€“4 km) and elongated (>10 km) transverse to propagation direction, with a relatively large vertical extent (~13 km). These spatial features are similar to previously observed mesospheric bores, but we observe only one crest with much larger vertical extent and higher vertical velocities.
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    Mesospheric Q2DW Interactions With Four Migrating Tides at 53Ā°N Latitude: Zonal Wavenumber Identification Through Dualā€Station Approaches
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021) He, Maosheng; Forbes, Jeffrey M.; Li, Guozhu; Jacobi, Christoph; Hoffmann, Peter
    Mesospheric winds from two longitudinal sectors at 53Ā°N latitude are combined to investigate quasi-two-day waves (Q2DWs) and their nonlinear interactions with tides. In a summer 2019 case study, we diagnose the zonal wavenumber m of spectral peaks at expected frequencies through two dual-station approaches, a phase differencing technique (PDT) on individual spectral peaks and a least squares procedure on family batched peaks. Consistent results from the approaches verify the occurrences of Rossby-gravity modes (m = 3 and 4 at periods T = 2.1 and 1.7 days), and their secondary waves (SWs) generated from interactions with diurnal, semi-diurnal, ter-diurnal, and quatra-diurnal migrating tides. We further extend the PDT to 2012ā€“2019, illustrating that Q2DWs exhibit significant interannual variability. Composite analysis reveals seasonal and altitude variations of the Rossby-gravity modes and their SWs. The Rossby-gravity modes maximize in local summer, whereas their 16- and 9.6-h SWs appear more in winter.
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    Detrainment Dominates CCN Concentrations Around Non-Precipitating Convective Clouds Over the Amazon
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2022) Braga, Ramon C.; Rosenfeld, Daniel; Andreae, Meinrat O.; Pƶhlker, Christopher; Pƶschl, Ulrich; Voigt, Christiane; Weinzierl, Bernadett; Wendisch, Manfred; Pƶhlker, Mira L.; Harrison, Daniel
    We investigated the relationship between the number concentration of cloud droplets (Nd) in ice-free convective clouds and of particles large enough to act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) measured at the lateral boundaries of cloud elements. The data were collected during the ACRIDICON-CHUVA aircraft campaign over the Amazon Basin. The results indicate that the CCN particles at the lateral cloud boundaries are dominated by detrainment from the cloud. The CCN concentrations detrained from non-precipitating convective clouds are smaller compared to below cloud bases. The detrained CCN particles from precipitating cloud volumes have relatively larger sizes, but lower concentrations. Our findings indicate that CCN particles ingested from below cloud bases are activated into cloud droplets, which evaporate at the lateral boundaries and above cloud base and release the CCN again to ambient cloud-free air, after some cloud processing. These results support the hypothesis that the CCN around the cloud are cloud-processed.