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At least 397 records · Page 22

Advancing Measurements and Understanding of the Rate and Structure of Atmospheric Warming

The rate and geographic pattern of atmospheric warming are key indicators of historical climate change and play a role in modulating future changes in Earth’s climate. The past and future evolution of atmospheric temperature is simulated using global climate models while observational estimates of past warming are derived from satellite microwave measurements. Individual climate models simulate widely varying rates of past and future atmospheric warming and most model simulations exhibit greater tropospheric (lowest ~10 km of atmosphere) temperature change than satellite observations between 1979 and 2020. This project examined intermodel differences in the pattern of atmospheric warming and how these differences influence climate feedbacks that can amplify or damp the rate of global surface warming. A key result is that climate model representation of the current climate can influence climate feedbacks and the simulation of future changes in climate. Another focus of this project was to analyze how models respond to different input datasets, such as volcanic aerosols or sea surface temperature (in atmosphere-only simulations). We find that different prescribed inputs can affect simulated changes in atmospheric temperature, even though “input uncertainty” is often unconsidered in model-observational comparisons. A final focus of this research project was to consider the influence of natural internal climate variability on satellite era changes in climate. Although the Earth is warming substantially due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, the observed warming rate can be modulated by natural variations in the Earth’s climate. We find that natural climate variability has slowed the rate of tropical tropospheric warming, which explains model-satellite differences in the rate of tropospheric warming.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Bhutan Water Resources III: Analyzing Forest Disturbances and Climate Data in Bhutan to Create a Tool for Assisting the Himalayan Environment Rhythm Observation and Evaluation Systems (HEROES) Project

Forest disturbances from bark beetle outbreaks are a major concern in Bhutan, known to cause extensive tree mortality to pine and spruce forests. The NASA DEVELOP team partnered with the Ugyen Wangchuck Institute of Conservation and Environmental Research (UWICER), the Bhutan Foundation, and the Karuna Foundation to assess forest changes for the districts of Bumthang and Haa from 2000 to 2018. The project used preprocessed meteorological data from the Climate Hazards Center Infrared Precipitation with Station (CHIRPS) and Famine Early Warning System Network Land Data Assimilation System (FLDAS), along with Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) to assess apparent forest disturbance occurrences and observed climate trends. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) was used to resolve variations in elevation and slope for mountainous regions. Using the Google Earth Engine LandTrendr (LT) code algorithm, along with Landsat data, the team developed an app called Forest Disturbances Detection Toolbox (FDDT) to assess forest changes in Bhutan. The app includes climate variables for the focus districts, along with LT variables, which allows the end users to further examine the cause of disturbances. The team compared geocoordinates for known disturbances with LT disturbance detection products. Although additional work is needed in the future to validate the project end products from the FDDT, the tool will be provided to the project partners to aid forest management efforts in Bhutan.

Tashi Choden↗

Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha′apai Volcano Impact Model Observation Comparison (HTHH-MOC) project: experiment protocol and model descriptions

The 2022 Hunga volcanic eruption injected a significant amount of water vapor and a moderate amount of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, causing observable responses in the climate system. We have developed a model–observation comparison project to investigate the evolution of volcanic water and aerosols and their impacts on atmospheric dynamics, chemistry, and climate, using several state-of-the-art chemistry climate models. The project goals are (1) to evaluate the current chemistry–climate models to quantify their performance in comparison to observations and (2) to understand atmospheric responses in the Earth system after this exceptional event and investigate the potential impacts in the projected future. To achieve these goals, we designed specific experiments for direct comparisons to observations, for example from balloons and the Microwave Limb Sounder satellite instrument. Experiment 1 consists of two sets of free-running ensemble experiments from 2022 to 2031: one with fixed sea-surface temperatures and sea ice and one with coupled ocean. These experiments will help to understand the long-term evolution of water vapor and aerosols; quantify HTHH effects on stratospheric and mesospheric temperatures, dynamics, and transport; understand the impact of dynamic changes on ozone chemistry; quantify the net radiative forcings; and evaluate any surface climate impact. Experiment 2 is a nudged-run experiment from 2022 to 2023 using observed meteorology. To allow participation of more climate models with varying complexities of aerosol simulation, we include two sets of simulations in Experiment 2: Experiment 2a is designed for models with internally generated aerosol, while Experiment 2b is designed for models using prescribed aerosol surface area density. This experiment will help to analyze H 2 O and aerosol evolution, quantify the net radiative forcings, understand the impacts on mid-latitude and polar O 3 chemistry, and allow close comparisons with observations.

Zhu, Yunqian [Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (Unit↗

Evaluation of Leading Modes of Climate Variability in the CMIP Archives

The adequate simulation of internal climate variability is key for our understanding of climate as it underpins efforts to attribute historical events, predict on seasonal and decadal time scales, and isolate the effects of climate change. Here the skill of models in reproducing observed modes of climate variability is assessed, both across and within the CMIP3, CMIP5, and CMIP6 archives, in order to document model capabilities, progress across ensembles, and persisting biases. A focus is given to the well-observed tropical and extratropical modes that exhibit small intrinsic variability relative to model structural uncertainty. These include El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the northern and southern annular modes (NAM and SAM). Significant improvements are identified in models’ representation of many modes. Canonical biases, which involve both amplitudes and patterns, are generally reduced across model generations. For example, biases in ENSO-related equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature, which extend too far westward, and associated atmospheric teleconnections, which are too weak, are reduced. Stronger tropical expression of the PDO in successive CMIP generations has characterized their improvement, with some CMIP6 models generating patterns that lie within the range of observed estimates. For the NAO, NAM, and SAM, pattern correlations with observations are generally higher than for other modes and slight improvements are identified across successive model generations. Finally, for ENSO and PDO spectra and extratropical modes, changes are small compared to internal variability, precluding definitive statements regarding improvement.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Interaction of the Climate System and the Solid Earth: Analysis of Observations and Models

Under SENH funding we have carried out a number of diverse analyses of interactions of the climate system (atmosphere, ocean, land surface hydrology) with the solid Earth. While the original work plan emphasized analysis of excitation of variations in Earth rotation, with a lesser emphasis on time variable gravity, opportunities that developed during the proposal period in connection with preparations for the GRACE mission led us to a more balanced effort between these two topics. The results of our research are outlined in several topical sections: (1) oceanic excitation of variations in Earth rotation; (2) short period atmosphere-ocean excitation of variations in Earth rotation; (3) analysis of coupled climate system simulation; (4) observing system simulation studies for GRACE mission design; and (5) oceanic response to atmospheric pressure loading.

Bryan, Frank↗

Constraining the Varied Response of Northern Hemisphere Winter Circulation Waviness to Climate Change

Abstract While a large latitudinal displacement of the westerly jet brings about disproportionate socioeconomic impacts over Northern Hemisphere midlatitude continents, it is not well understood as to whether the winter circulation will become wavier or less in response to climate change. Here, using observations and large ensembles of climate models, we show that changes in atmospheric waviness can be estimated from the optimal structures of the westerly jet for wavier circulation, which are obtained from an advection‐diffusion model. Thus, the changes in westerly jet structure in climate models under climate change provide a physical constraint on changes in atmospheric waviness, indicating that the North Atlantic wave activity will experience a robust decline in a warmer climate, while future North Pacific wave activity is obscured by model uncertainty rather than internal variability. These findings highlight the changes to jet stream structure as a constraint for regional circulation waviness in a changing climate.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Impact of August 2017 British Columbia Pyrocumulonimbus Injection Events on Lower Stratospheric Composition

On August 12-13, 2017 large wildfires in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, Canada sparked a series of pyrocumulonimbus events lifting carbonaceous aerosol and other trace gases to the tropopause region (~10-11 km). Over the subsequent days, this plume of trace gas and aerosol species was observed from numerous NASA satellite instruments to rise to over 22 km due to the strong shortwave heating of the carbonaceous aerosol. We will show observations of CO and H2O from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument on Aura satellite demonstrating the clear rise and spread of the plume which can be coherently tracked for at least 2 months. Enhancements in HCN, CH3CN, and methanol (CH3OH) are also evident in MLS measurements with the former two having low vertical resolution. We have also detected a significantly lower concentration of O3 and HNO3 in the plume compared to the surrounding environment, which is consistent with a dynamical perturbation from the rapid diabatic rise of the heated plume from the tropopause through the lower stratosphere. In the weeks and months that followed this plume spread over much of the Northern Hemisphere and the aerosol was observed to be slowly removed by transport back into the troposphere. We will compare and contrast the Aug. 2017 event with the other large event in the MLS record, the Feb. 2009 Australian "Black Saturday" event, and use the Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry-Climate Model (GEOSCCM) replayed to observed meteorology to understand the effect of the British Columbia event on trace gas species. GEOSCCM helps us to separate the relative roles of dynamics and chemistry on lower stratospheric trace gas composition changes, not only in the rising plume but also the impact of its eventual spread over the Northern Hemisphere during fall and winter of 2017-2018.

Oman, Luke D.↗

Updated Observations of Clouds By MODIS for Global Model Assessment

This paper describes a new global dataset of cloud properties observed by MODIS relying on the current (collection 6.1) processing of MODIS data and produced to facilitate comparison with results from the MODIS observational proxy used in climate models. The dataset merges observations from the two MODIS instruments into a single netCDF file. Statistics (mean, standard deviation, and number of observations) are accumulated over daily and monthly timescales on an equal-angle grid for viewing and illumination geometry, cloud detection, cloud-top pressure, and cloud properties (optical thickness, effective particle size, and water path) partitioned by thermodynamic phase and an assessment as to whether the underlying observations come from fully or partly cloudy pixels. Similarly partitioned joint histograms are available for (1) optical thickness and cloud-top pressure, (2) optical thickness and particle size, and (3) cloud water path and particle size. Differences with standard data products, caveats for data use, and guidelines for comparison to the MODIS simulator are described.

Robert Pincus↗

Constraining Arctic Climate Projections of Wintertime Warming With Surface Turbulent Flux Observations and Representation of Surface-Atmosphere Coupling

The drivers of rapid Arctic climate change—record sea ice loss, warming SSTs, and a lengthening of the sea ice melt season—compel us to understand how this complex system operates and use this knowledge to enhance Arctic predictability. Changing energy flows sparked by sea ice decline, spotlight atmosphere-surface coupling processes as central to Arctic system function and its climate change response. Despite this, the representation of surface turbulent flux parameterizations in models has not kept pace with our understanding. The large uncertainty in Arctic climate change projections, the central role of atmosphere-surface coupling, and the large discrepancy in model representation of surface turbulent fluxes indicates that these processes may serve as useful observational constraints on projected Arctic climate change. This possibility requires an evaluation of surface turbulent fluxes and their sensitivity to controlling factors (surface-air temperature and moisture differences, sea ice, and winds) within contemporary climate models (here Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6). The influence of individual controlling factors and their interactions is diagnosed using a multi-linear regression approach. This evaluation is done for four sea ice loss regimes, determined from observational sea ice loss trends, to control for the confounding effects of natural variability between models and observations. The comparisons between satellite- and model-derived surface turbulent fluxes illustrate that while models capture the general sensitivity of surface turbulent fluxes to declining sea ice and to surface-air gradients of temperature and moisture, substantial mean state biases exist. Specifically, the central Arctic is too weak of a heat sink to the winter atmosphere compared to observations, with implications to the simulated atmospheric circulation variability and thermodynamic profiles. Models were found to be about 50% more efficient at turning an air-sea temperature gradient anomaly into a sensible heat flux anomaly relative to observations. Further, the influence of sea ice concentration on the sensible heat flux is underestimated in models compared to observations. The opposite is found for the latent heat flux variability in models; where the latent heat flux is too sensitive to a sea ice concentration anomaly. Lastly, the results suggest that present-day trends in sea ice retreat regions may serve as suitable observational constraints of projected Arctic warming.

turbulent fluxes↗

The Role of Global Hydrologic Processes in Interannual and Long-Term Climate Variability

The earth's climate and its variability is linked inextricably with the presence of water on our planet. El Nino / Southern Oscillation-- the major mode of interannual variability-- is characterized by strong perturbations in oceanic evaporation, tropical rainfall, and radiation. On longer time scales, the major feedback mechanism in CO2-induced global warming is actually that due to increased water vapor holding capacity of the atmosphere. The global hydrologic cycle effects on climate are manifested through influence of cloud and water vapor on energy fluxes at the top of atmosphere and at the surface. Surface moisture anomalies retain the "memory" of past precipitation anomalies and subsequently alter the partitioning of latent and sensible heat fluxes at the surface. At the top of atmosphere, water vapor and cloud perturbations alter the net amount of radiation that the earth's climate system receives. These pervasive linkages between water, radiation, and surface processes present major complexities for observing and modeling climate variations. Major uncertainties in the observations include vertical structure of clouds and water vapor, surface energy balance, and transport of water and heat by wind fields. Modeling climate variability and change on a physical basis requires accurate by simplified submodels of radiation, cloud formation, radiative exchange, surface biophysics, and oceanic energy flux. In the past, we m safely say that being "data poor' has limited our depth of understanding and impeded model validation and improvement. Beginning with pre-EOS data sets, many of these barriers are being removed. EOS platforms with the suite of measurements dedicated to specific science questions are part of our most cost effective path to improved understanding and predictive capability. This talk will highlight some of the major questions confronting global hydrology and the prospects for significant progress afforded by EOS-era measurements.

Robertson, Franklin R.↗

AI Automated Discovery of New Climate Water System Knowledge from Models and Observations

This paper addresses focus area 3, “Insight gleaned from complex data.” Science Challenge: The climate-water system is highly complex, containing a multitude of positive and negative feedbacks, time scales stretching many orders-of-magnitudes, and non-linear, connected processes. Powerful artificial intelligence (AI) methods can revolutionize and automate the discovery of new knowledge and relationships in the climate-water system, which will improve understanding and predictability of extreme hydrological events.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Tropospheric Science

Now casting, current weather forecasting, extended range forecasting and climate prediction are discussed with an emphasis on the observational requirements of climate prediction. Intergrated hydrologic cycle measurements, cloud parameter characterization, air sea interaction measurements, tropical winds, and tropospheric gaseous species measurements are discussed.

Leovy, C. B.↗

Multi-Frequency Analysis of Simulated versus Observed Variability in Tropospheric Temperature

Studies seeking to identify a human-caused global warming signal generally rely on climate model estimates of the “noise” of intrinsic natural variability. Assessing the reliability of these noise estimates is of critical importance. We evaluate here the statistical significance of differences between climate model and observational natural variability spectra for global-mean mid- to upper-tropospheric temperature (TMT). We use TMT information from satellites and large multimodel ensembles of forced and unforced simulations. Our main goal is to explore the sensitivity of model-versus-data spectral comparisons to a wide range of subjective decisions. These include the choice of satellite and climate model TMT datasets, the method for separating signal and noise, the frequency range considered, and the statistical model used to represent observed natural variability. Of particular interest is the amplitude of the interdecadal noise against which an anthropogenic tropospheric warming signal must be detected. We find that on time scales of 5–20 years, observed TMT variability is (on average) overestimated by the last two generations of climate models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. This result is relatively insensitive to different plausible analyst choices, enhancing confidence in previous claims of detectable anthropogenic warming of the troposphere and indicating that these claims may be conservative. A further key finding is that two commonly used statistical models of short-term and long-term memory have deficiencies in their ability to capture the complex shape of observed TMT spectra.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Aerosol-Radiation-Cloud Interactions in the South-East Atlantic: Future Suborbital Activities to Address Knowledge Gaps in Satellite and Model Assessments

Southern Africa produces almost a third of the Earth's biomass burning (BB) aerosol particles. Particles lofted into the mid-troposphere are transported westward over the South-East (SE) Atlantic, home to one of the three permanent subtropical stratocumulus (Sc) cloud decks in the world. The SE Atlantic stratocumulus deck interacts with the dense layers of BB aerosols that initially overlay the cloud deck, but later subside and may mix into the clouds. These interactions include adjustments to aerosol-induced solar heating and microphysical effects, and their global representation in climate models remains one of the largest uncertainties in estimates of future climate. Hence, new observations over the SE Atlantic have significant implications for global climate change scenarios. Our understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions in the SE Atlantic is hindered both by the lack of knowledge on aerosol and cloud properties, as well as the lack of knowledge about detailed physical processes involved. Most notably, we are missing knowledge on the absorptive and cloud nucleating properties of aerosols, including their vertical distribution relative to clouds, on the locations and degree of aerosol mixing into clouds, on the processes that govern cloud property adjustments, and on the importance of aerosol effects on clouds relative to co-varying synoptic scale meteorology. We discuss the current knowledge of aerosol and cloud property distributions based on satellite observations and sparse suborbital sampling. Recent efforts to make full use of A-Train aerosol sensor synergies will be highlighted. We describe planned field campaigns in the region to address the existing knowledge gaps. Specifically, we describe the scientific objectives and implementation of the five synergistic, international research activities aimed at providing some of the key aerosol and cloud properties and a process-level understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions over the SE Atlantic: NASA's ORACLES, the UK Met Office's CLARIFY-2016, the DoE's LASIC, NSF's ONFIRE, and CNRS' AEROCLO-SA.

aerosols↗

Compilation of Abstracts for SC12 Conference Proceedings

1 A Breakthrough in Rotorcraft Prediction Accuracy Using Detached Eddy Simulation; 2 Adjoint-Based Design for Complex Aerospace Configurations; 3 Simulating Hypersonic Turbulent Combustion for Future Aircraft; 4 From a Roar to a Whisper: Making Modern Aircraft Quieter; 5 Modeling of Extended Formation Flight on High-Performance Computers; 6 Supersonic Retropropulsion for Mars Entry; 7 Validating Water Spray Simulation Models for the SLS Launch Environment; 8 Simulating Moving Valves for Space Launch System Liquid Engines; 9 Innovative Simulations for Modeling the SLS Solid Rocket Booster Ignition; 10 Solid Rocket Booster Ignition Overpressure Simulations for the Space Launch System; 11 CFD Simulations to Support the Next Generation of Launch Pads; 12 Modeling and Simulation Support for NASA's Next-Generation Space Launch System; 13 Simulating Planetary Entry Environments for Space Exploration Vehicles; 14 NASA Center for Climate Simulation Highlights; 15 Ultrascale Climate Data Visualization and Analysis; 16 NASA Climate Simulations and Observations for the IPCC and Beyond; 17 Next-Generation Climate Data Services: MERRA Analytics; 18 Recent Advances in High-Resolution Global Atmospheric Modeling; 19 Causes and Consequences of Turbulence in the Earths Protective Shield; 20 NASA Earth Exchange (NEX): A Collaborative Supercomputing Platform; 21 Powering Deep Space Missions: Thermoelectric Properties of Complex Materials; 22 Meeting NASA's High-End Computing Goals Through Innovation; 23 Continuous Enhancements to the Pleiades Supercomputer for Maximum Uptime; 24 Live Demonstrations of 100-Gbps File Transfers Across LANs and WANs; 25 Untangling the Computing Landscape for Climate Simulations; 26 Simulating Galaxies and the Universe; 27 The Mysterious Origin of Stellar Masses; 28 Hot-Plasma Geysers on the Sun; 29 Turbulent Life of Kepler Stars; 30 Modeling Weather on the Sun; 31 Weather on Mars: The Meteorology of Gale Crater; 32 Enhancing Performance of NASAs High-End Computing Applications; 33 Designing Curiosity's Perfect Landing on Mars; 34 The Search Continues: Kepler's Quest for Habitable Earth-Sized Planets.

HPC↗

The Mars Dust and Water Cycles: Investigating the Influence of Clouds on the Vertical Distribution and Meridional Transport of Dust and Water.

The dust and water cycles are critical to the current Martian climate, and they interact with each other through cloud formation. Dust modulates the thermal structure of the atmosphere and thus greatly influences atmospheric circulation. Clouds provide radiative forcing and control the net hemispheric transport of water through the alteration of the vertical distributions of water and dust. Recent advancements in the quality and sophistication of both climate models and observations enable an increased understanding of how the coupling between the dust and water cycles (through cloud formation) impacts the dust and water cycles. We focus here on the effects of clouds on the vertical distributions of dust and water and how those vertical distributions control the net meridional transport of water. We utilize observations of temperature, dust and water ice from the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and the NASA ARC Mars Global Climate Model (MGCM) to show that the magnitude and nature of the hemispheric exchange of water during NH summer is sensitive to the vertical structure of the simulated aphelion cloud belt. Further, we investigate how clouds influence atmospheric temperatures and thus the vertical structure of the cloud belt. Our goal is to isolate and understand the importance of radiative/dynamic feedbacks due to the physical processes involved with cloud formation and evolution on the current climate of Mars.

NASA ARC Mars Global Climate Model (MGCM)↗

Land Boundary Conditions for the Goddard Earth Observing System Model Version 5 (GEOS-5) Climate Modeling System: Recent Updates and Data File Descriptions

The Earths land surface boundary conditions in the Goddard Earth Observing System version 5 (GEOS-5) modeling system were updated using recent high spatial and temporal resolution global data products. The updates include: (i) construction of a global 10-arcsec land-ocean lakes-ice mask; (ii) incorporation of a 10-arcsec Globcover 2009 land cover dataset; (iii) implementation of Level 12 Pfafstetter hydrologic catchments; (iv) use of hybridized SRTM global topography data; (v) construction of the HWSDv1.21-STATSGO2 merged global 30 arc second soil mineral and carbon data in conjunction with a highly-refined soil classification system; (vi) production of diffuse visible and near-infrared 8-day MODIS albedo climatologies at 30-arcsec from the period 2001-2011; and (vii) production of the GEOLAND2 and MODIS merged 8-day LAI climatology at 30-arcsec for GEOS-5. The global data sets were preprocessed and used to construct global raster data files for the software (mkCatchParam) that computes parameters on catchment-tiles for various atmospheric grids. The updates also include a few bug fixes in mkCatchParam, as well as changes (improvements in algorithms, etc.) to mkCatchParam that allow it to produce tile-space parameters efficiently for high resolution AGCM grids. The update process also includes the construction of data files describing the vegetation type fractions, soil background albedo, nitrogen deposition and mean annual 2m air temperature to be used with the future Catchment CN model and the global stream channel network to be used with the future global runoff routing model. This report provides detailed descriptions of the data production process and data file format of each updated data set.

GEOS-5↗

Evaluating the Global Water and Energy Cycles in Reanalyses Using Ensemble Spread

Reanalyses provide continuous observation based global data over weather and climate time scales through observational assimilation. Ensemble forecasts are a component of modern data assimilation systems, providing information to the analysis process. Storing this spread over the duration of a climate reanalysis will provide insight to the variations of the model that underlies the reanalysis data. Global water and energy cycles (WECs) are a critical aspect of both weather and climate, yet there are some large gaps in the observation of key components as well as their representation in models and reanalyses. NASA’s Water and Energy cycle Studies (NEWS) program is developing a corrected and balanced budget data set that is closed at monthly and regional scales during the 21st century, so far. In this paper, we will evaluate reanalysis WEC components against the initial NEWS collection of observation, but integrate the analysis spread from the reanalysis data assimilation as a new perspective on the evaluation. The initial evaluation will cover a few more recent years using ERA5 10 member spread. As the GMAO’s production of the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications 21st Century (MERRA-21C) progresses, the effort will include the MERRA-21C 32 member spread. Ultimately, we will explore the potential of the ensemble spread as a measure of uncertainty in the reanalysis.

Michael Bosilovich↗