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NASA NTRS2016

Threats to North American Forests from Southern Pine Beetle with Warming Winters

In coming decades, warmer winters are likely to lift range constraints on many cold-limited forest insects. Recent unprecedented expansion of the southern pine beetle (SPB, Dendroctonus frontalis) into New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in concert with warming annual temperature minima highlights the risk that this insect pest poses to the pine forests of the northern United States and Canada under continued climate change. Here we present the first projections of northward expansion in SPB-suitable climates using a statistical bioclimatic range modeling approach and current-generation general circulation model (GCM) output under the RCP 4.5 and 8.5 emissions scenarios. Our results show that by the middle of the 21st century, the climate is likely to be suitable for SPB expansion into vast areas of previously unaffected forests throughout the northeastern United States and into southeastern Canada. This scenario would pose a significant economic and ecological risk to the affected regions, including disruption oflocal ecosystem services, dramatic shifts in forest structure, and threats to native biodiversity.

risk↗
NASA NTRS2017

Treatment of Overlapping Gaseous Absorption with the Correlated-k Method in Hot Jupiter and Brown Dwarf Atmosphere Models

The correlated-k method is frequently used to speed up radiation calculations in both one-dimensional and three-dimensional atmosphere models. An inherent difficulty with this method is how to treat overlapping absorption, i.e. absorption by more than one gas in a given spectral region. We have evaluated the applicability of three different methods in hot Jupiter and brown dwarf atmosphere models, all of which have been previously applied within models in the literature: (i) Random overlap, both with and without resorting and rebinning, (ii) equivalent extinction and (iii) pre-mixing of opacities, where (i) and (ii) combine k-coefficients for different gases to obtain k-coefficients for a mixture of gases, while (iii) calculates k-coefficients for a given mixture from the corresponding mixed line-by-line opacities. We find that the random overlap method is the most accurate and flexible of these treatments, and is fast enough to be used in one-dimensional models with resorting and rebinning. In three-dimensional models such as GCMs it is too slow, however, and equivalent extinction can provide a speed-up of at least a factor of three with only a minor loss of accuracy while at the same time retaining the flexibility gained by combining k-coefficients computed for each gas individually. Pre-mixed opacities are significantly less flexible, and we also find that particular care must be taken when using this method in order to to adequately resolve steep variations in composition at important chemical equilibrium boundaries. We use the random overlap method with resorting and rebinning in our one-dimensional atmosphere model and equivalent extinction in our GCM, which allows us to e.g. consistently treat the feedback of non-equilibrium chemistry on the total opacity and therefore the calculated P-T profiles in our models.

atmospheres↗
NASA NTRS2017

Vertical Profiles of Mars 1.27 Micrometer O2 Dayglow from MRO CRISM Limb Spectra: Seasonal/global Behaviors, Comparisons to LMDGCM Simulations, and a Global Definition for Mars Water Vapor Profiles

Since July of 2009, The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectral Mapper (CRISM) onboard the Mars Re- connaissance Orbiter (MRO) has periodically obtained pole-to-pole observations (i.e., full MRO orbits) of limb scanned visible/near IR spectra (lambda= 0.4 - 4.0 micrometers, delta lambda approx. 10 nm- Murchie et al., 2007). These CRISM limb observations support the first seasonally and spatially extensive set of Mars 1.27 micometers O2 (1 delta(sub g)) day-glow profile retrievals (approx. 1100) over greater than or equal to 8-80 km altitudes. Their comparison to Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique (LMD) global climate model (GCM) simulated O2 (1 delta(sub g)) volume emission rate (VER) profiles, as a function of altitude, latitude, and season (solar longitude, L(sub s), supports several key conclusions regarding Mars atmospheric water vapor (which is derived from O2 (1 delta(sub g)) emission rates), Mars O3, and the collisional de-excitation of O2 (1 delta(sub g)) in the Mars CO2 atmosphere. Current (Navarro et al., 2014) LMDGCM simulations of Mars atmospheric water vapor fall 2-3 times below CRISM derived water vapor abundances at 20-40 km altitudes over low-to-mid latitudes in northern spring (L(sub s) = 30-60 deg), and northern mid-to-high latitudes over northern summer (L(sub s) = 60-140 deg). In contrast, LMDGCM simulated water vapor is 2-5 times greater than CRISM derived values at all latitudes and seasons above 40 km, within the aphelion cloud belt (ACB), and over high-southern to mid-southern latitudes in southern summer (L(sub s) = 190-340 deg) at 15-35 km altitudes. Overall, the solstitial summer-to-winter hemisphere gradients in water vapor are reversed between the LMDGCM modeled versus the CRISM derived water vapor abundances above 10-30 km altitudes. LMDGCM-CRISM differences in water vapor profiles correlate with LMDGCM-CRISM differences in cloud mixing profiles; and likely reflect limitations in simulating cloud microphysics and radiative forcing, both of which restrict meridional transport of water from summer- to-winter hemispheres on Mars (Clancy et al., 1996; Montmessin et al., 2004; Steele et al., 2014; Navarro et al., 2014) and depend on uncertain cloud microphysical properties (Navarro et al., 2014). The derived low-to-mid latitude changes in Mars water vapor vertical distributions should reduce current model- data disagreements in column O3 and H2O2 abundances over low-to-mid latitudes (e.g., within the ACB; Lefevre et al., 2008; Encrenaz et al., 2015; Clancy et al., 2016). Lastly, the global/seasonal average com- parison of CRISM and LMDGCM O2 (1 delta(sub g)) VER below 20 km altitudes indicates a factor of approx. 3 times lower value (0.25 x 10(exp -20) cu cm sec(exp -1)) for the CO2 collisional de-excitation rate coefficient of O2 (1 delta(sub g)) than derived recently by Guslyakova et al. (2016).

Clancy, R. Todd↗
NASA NTRS2018

Quantifying the Effect of Mixing on the Mean Age of Air in CCMVal-2 and CCMI-1 Models

The stratospheric age of air (AoA) is a useful measure of the overall capabilities of a general circulation model (GCM) to simulate stratospheric transport. Previous studies have reported a large spread in the simulation of AoA by GCMs and coupled chemistry-climate models (CCMs). Compared to observational estimates, simulated AoA is mostly too low. Here we attempt to untangle the processes that lead to the AoA differences between the models and between models and observations. AoA is influenced by both mean transport by the residual circulation and two-way mixing; we quantify the effects of these processes using data from the CCM inter-comparison projects CCMVal-2 (Chemistry-Climate Model Validation Activity 2) and CCMI-1 (Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative, phase 1). Transport along the residual circulation is measured by the residual circulation transit time (RCTT). We interpret the difference between AoA and RCTT as additional aging by mixing. Aging by mixing thus includes mixing on both the resolved and subgrid scale. We find that the spread in AoA between the models is primarily caused by differences in the effects of mixing and only to some extent by differences in residual circulation strength. These effects are quantified by the mixing efficiency, a measure of the relative increase in AoA by mixing. The mixing efficiency varies strongly between the models from 0.24 to 1.02. We show that the mixing efficiency is not only controlled by horizontal mixing, but by vertical mixing and vertical diffusion as well. Possible causes for the differences in the models' mixing efficiencies are discussed. Differences in subgrid-scale mixing (including differences in advection schemes and model resolutions) likely contribute to the differences in mixing efficiency. However, differences in the relative contribution of resolved versus parameterized wave forcing do not appear to be related to differences in mixing efficiency or AoA.

CCMI↗
NASA NTRS2018

File Specification for M2AMIP Products: Version Number - 1.0

The Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) is an atmospheric reanalysis computed with the Goddard Earth Observing (EOS) System, Version 5.12.4 (GEOS) data assimilation system (Gelaro et al., 2017). To supplement the reanalysis, the GEOS General Circulation Model (GCM) used in MERRA-2 has been used to generate a 10-member ensemble of simulations, configured following the convention of the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP; Gates et al., 1992). Each ensemble member was initialized using meteorological fields from a different date in November 1979. The AMIP simulations used the sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea-ice boundary conditions that were used in MERRA-2 (Bosilovich et al., 2016). This 10-member ensemble of AMIP simulations, denoted M2AMIP, is available for download in a group of self-describing files, which are documented in this office note. All data collections are provided on the same horizontal grid as MERRA-2. This grid has 576 points in the longitudinal direction and 361 points in the latitudinal direction, corresponding to a resolution of 0.625 degrees by 0.5 degrees. Although data collections are available at this grid, all fields are computed on a cubed-sphere grid with an approximate resolution of 50 km by 50 km and are then spatially interpolated to the latitude-longitude grid. There are no changes in the vertical grids used: variables are provided on either the native vertical grid of 72 model layers, or interpolated to 42 standard pressure levels. Unlike MERRA, no data collections are available at the vertical layer edges. More details on the grid are provided in Section 4. MERRA-2 introduced observation-based precipitation forcing for the land surface parameterization and the corresponding variable PRECTOTCORR in the MERRA-2 FLX (surface turbulent fluxes and related quantities) and LFO (land-surface forcing) collections (see Section 6; Reichle et al., 2017). While this variable is still available for M2AMIP, there was no observation-based forcing, making the value identical to the model derived precipitation, PRECTOT. Similarly, without data assimilation, the values for the analysis increments, D*DTANA, in the tendency and vertically integrated file collections are zero. The M2AMIP data are available for download online through the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) DataPortal (https://portal.nccs.nasa.gov/datashare/gmao_m2amip/). Data are arranged in subdirectories based on ensemble member, followed by year and month. Control files that are compatible with the Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) are available in the ctl_daily and ctl_monthly directories for the hourly, three hourly, and monthly mean data. Control files for the monthly mean diurnal cycle can be found in the ctl_diurnal subdirectory within the directory for each individual ensemble member.

M2AMIP↗
NASA NTRS2016

Detection of Northern Hemisphere Transient Baroclinic Eddies in REMS Pressure Data at Gale Crater Mars

Wintertime transient baroclinic eddies in the northern midlatitudes of Mars were identified in Viking Lander 2 (VL2, 48.3N, 134.0E) surface pressure data back in the early 1980s. Here we report the results of an analysis of REMS surface pressure data acquired by the Curiosity Rover in Gale Crater (4.5S, 137.4E) that suggests the meridional scale of these eddies is so large that the disturbances in the surface pressure fields they create extend across the equator and into the southern hemisphere. A power spectrum analysis of the seasonally detrended REMS pressure data from Ls=240-280 shows dominant periods of ~ 6 sols and ~2.2 sols (though with greatly reduced power) which are close the dominant periods of the transient eddies observed by VL2 at this season. Analysis of the surface pressure fields from the Ames Mars GCM for the same season also shows dominant periods at the grid points closest to VL2 and Gale Crater similar to those observed. In the model, the disturbances responsible for these oscillations are eastward traveling baroclinic eddies whose amplitudes are greatest at northern mid latitudes at this season, but whose meridional extent does indeed extend into the low latitudes of the southern hemisphere. REMS appears to be seeing the signature of these eddies, not only for this season but for the early fall and late winter seasons as well. While orbital images of the so called “flushing storms”, which more closely correspond to the shorter period waves, show dust-lifting frontal systems that cross the equator, REMS data - even though acquired at a longitude of comparatively weak storm activity - provide the first in-situ evidence that northern hemisphere transient eddies can be detected at the surface in low latitudes of the southern hemisphere.

REMS Data↗
NASA NTRS2018

Toward Integrated Seasonal Predictions of Land and Ocean Carbon Flux: Lessons from the 2015-16 El Nino

Seasonal forecasts made by coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (GCMs) are increasingly able to provide skillful forecasts of climate anomalies. At some centers, the capabilities of these models are being expanded to represent carbon-climate feedbacks including ocean biogeochemistry (OB), terrestrial biosphere (TB) interactions, and fires. These advances raise the question of whether such models can support skillful forecasts of carbon fluxes.Here, we examine whether land and ocean carbon flux anomalies associated with the 2015-16 El Nino could have been predicted months in advance. This El Nino was noteworthy for the magnitude of the ocean temperature perturbation, the skill with which this perturbation was predicted, and the extensive satellite observations that can be used to track its impact. We explore this topic using NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model, which routinely produces an ensemble of seasonal climate forecasts, and a suite of offline dynamical and statistical models that estimate carbon flux processes. Using GEOS forecast fields from 2015-16 to force flux model hindcasts shows that these models are able to reproduce significant features observed by satellites. Specifically, OB hindcasts are able to predict anomalies in chlorophyll distributions with lead times of 3-4 months. The ability of TB hindcasts to reproduce NDVI anomalies is driven by the skill of the climate forecast, which is greatest at short lead times over tropical landmasses. Statistical fire forecasts driven by ocean climate indices are able to predict burned area in the tropics with lead times of 3-12 months. We also integrate the ocean and land hindcast fluxes into the GEOS GCM to examine the magnitude of the atmospheric carbon dioxide anomaly and compare with satellite and ground-based observations.While seasonal forecasting remains an active area of research, these results demonstrate that forecasts of carbon flux processes can support a variety of applications, potentially allowing scientists to understand carbon-climate feedbacks as they happen and to capitalize on more flexible satellite technologies that allow areas of interest to be targeted with lead times of weeks to months. We also provide a first glimpse at the spring 2019 carbon forecast using the GEOS-based forecasting system.

Ott, L.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Bringing Climate Scientist's Tools into Classrooms to Improve Conceptual Understandings

Efforts to address anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) require public understanding of Earth and climate science. To meet this need, educational reforms and prominent scientists have called for instructional approaches that teach students how climate scientists examine AGCC. Yet, only a few educational studies have reported clear empirical results on what instructional approaches and climate education technologies best accomplish this goal. This manuscript presents detailed analysis and statistically significant results on the educational impact pre to post of students learning to use a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) global climate model (GCM). This series of case studies demonstrates that differing instructional approaches and climate education technologies result in differing levels of understanding of AGCC and ability to engage with policies addressing it. Students who learned the scientific process of climate modeling scored significantly higher pre to post on exams (quantitatively) and gained more complete conceptual understandings of the issue (qualitatively). Yet, teaching students to conduct research with complex technology can be difficult. This study also found lecture-based learning better improved recall of facts about GCMs tested by multiple-choice questions. Our findings indicate what educational systems and related technologies might provide the public with the conceptual understandings necessary to engage in the political debate over AGCC.

Public understanding↗
NASA NTRS2018

CLIMATE LECTURE 5: The Role of Clouds in Climate

David Rind has played a central role in the science of the modeling of climate change. He was the scientific driving force behind the development and evaluation of the first Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global climate model (GCM), Model II. Model II was one of the three original GCMs whose projections of climate change in response to a doubling of CO2 concentration were the basis for the influential Charney Report that produced the first assessment of global climate sensitivity. David used Model II to pioneer the scientific field of climate dynamics, performing a broad range of investigations of processes controlling individual elements of the general circulation and how they changed over a wide range of past and potential future climates. The defining characteristic of Davids papers is his unique talent for tracking down the myriad links and causal chains among different parts of the nonlinear climate system. Rather than viewing climate using a simple forcing-and-response paradigm, David showed that the global energy, water, and even momentum cycles are coupled via the general circulation and its transports.

Del Genio, Anthony D.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Climate Lecture 20: The Educational Global Climate Model (EdGCM)

Climate change will profoundly impact Earth's environmental health as well as the world's economic and geopolitical landscape over the coming decades. The impacts of climate change are, in fact, already beginning to be experienced and have the potential to affect every living plant and animal on Earth within decades. Given this reality, every citizen of this planet should have the right to knowledge about the Earth's climate system and have the option to adapt to, or help mitigate the profound changes that are coming. In addition, a portion of the workforce needs to be capable of interpreting and analyzing climate information because, since the impacts of climate change will be widespread, pervasive, and continue to change over time, more professions will be interacting with climate data. We are already at, or past, the point where educators and their students require access to the scientific and technological resources - computer models, data, and visualization tools - that scientists use daily in the study of climate change. Although scientists use many methods to study Earth's climate system, global climate models (GCMs) have become the primary tools for exploring the complex interactions between components of the entire system: atmosphere, oceans, and land. GCMs are used to make projections of future climate change, to simulate climates of the past, and even to help scientists look for life on other planets. Like any model, a GCM can help people evaluate actions before they are taken. Like Business Intelligence software, they are Climate Intelligence tools. Unfortunately, GCMs are black boxes to most people. A previous chapter in this book by Gary Russell, entitled Building a Climate Model, is one example of the growing body of literature aimed at the general public describing the inner workings of global climate models. This literature goes a long way toward explaining climate model fundamentals. However, it will not be enough to alleviate their black-box nature unless people are afforded hands-on, authentic learning experiences as well.

Chandler, Mark A.↗
NASA NTRS2018

ModelE Orbits & Calendars

The GISS climate model, ModelE, [an atmosphere-ocean model] has been extended to support the simulation of climates for exoplanets. As part of this process, a more general calendaring system has been implemented that is derived from orbital parameters. The calendar design attempts to preserve the basic notions of the 4 seasons as well as the time of day. These slides provide the basic underlying assumptions for the design and detail how to configure the model to use non-Earth orbital parameters. [One of a series of videos taken of the ROCKE-3D (Resolving Orbital and Climate Keys of Earth and Extraterrestrial Environments with Dynamics), a 3-Dimensional General Circulation Model (GCM) exoplanet modeling tutorial sessions, May 21-22, 2018, (this slide set was prepared for Day 2, Parts 1 and 2, May 22, 2018) on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com)]

Clune, Tom↗
NASA NTRS2019

Extratropical Large-Scale Traveling Weather Systems in the Southern Hemisphere on Mars

From late-autumn through early-spring, the middle- and high-latitudes of both hemispheres of Mars and its predominantly carbon-dioxide atmosphere support mean equator-to-pole thermal contrasts, and then, support a strong mean westerly polar vortex. Observations from orbiting spacecraft indicate that this intense mean baroclinicity-barotropicity supports large-scale eastward traveling weather systems (i.e., transient, traveling synoptic-period waves, on the order of the Rossby deformation scale). On Earth, extratropical weather disturbances arise from wind-shear instabilities, and these are critical components of the terrestrial global circulation. So it is the case for Mars. Large-scale traveling weather systems on Mars serve as agents in the transport of heat, momentum and scalar and tracer quantities (e.g., atmospheric dust, watervapor, ice clouds, chemical species, etc). Such weather systems interact with other large-scale atmospheric circulation components, namely, quasi-stationary (i.e., forced Rossby) modes; global thermal tidal modes; and then, upon large-/continental- geographical scales, upslope/ down-slope flows amongst high relief, low relief, impact basins, and volcanic rises, and more. The character of Mars' traveling extratropical weather disturbances in its southern hemisphere during late winter through early spring is investigated using a high-resolution Mars global climate model (i.e., Mars GCM), and one from the Agency's Mars Climate Modeling Center (MCMC) based at the NASA Ames Research Center. The climate model includes several complex atmospheric physical packages. With such physics modules, our global climate simulations present comparatively well with observations of the planet's current water cycle (Haberle et al.,2019). The climate model is "forced" with an annual dust cycle (i.e., nudged based on MGS/TES observations). Compared to the northern-hemisphere counterparts, the southern synoptic-period weather disturbances and accompanying frontal waves have smaller meridional and zonal scales, and are less intense. Influences of the zonally asymmetric (i.e., east-west varying) topography on southern large-scale weather are investigated, in addition to large-scale up-slope/down-slope flows and the diurnal cycle. A southern storm zone in late winter and early spring presents in the western hemisphere via orographic influences from the Tharsis highlands, and the Argyre and Hellas impact basins. Geographically localized transient-wave activity diagnostics are constructed that illuminate dynamical differences amongst the simulations and these are presented.

Hollingsworth, Jeffery L.↗
NASA NTRS2019

MARCI-observed clouds in the Hellas Basin during northern hemisphere summer on Mars: Interpretation with the NASA/Ames Legacy Mars Global Climate Model

We present a study that is motivated by a population of water ice clouds in the Hellas Basin that has been observed by the MARs Color Imager (MARCI) instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to persist throughout the majority of Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer. Although water ice clouds are present in Hellas at very low opacities throughout NH spring, they noticeably thicken after L(sub s) 60° and continue to do so until their peak optical thickness is attained at L(sub s) ~120°. They dissipate rapidly from L(sub s) 120° to 150°, and by L(sub s) 150°, the only clouds in Hellas are on the southern side of the basin and are indistinguishable from the polar hood clouds. We use the NASA/Ames Legacy Mars Global Climate Model (GCM), which is supported by the Agency’s Mars Climate Modeling Center, to investigate the dynamical and microphysical mechanisms that control the formation and evolution of Hellas water ice clouds. We show that water is transported from the North Polar Residual Cap (NPRC) southward across the equator and into the Hellas region. Water vapor is confined down low by cloud formation in the aphelion cloud belt, thus limiting the effectiveness of transport by the zonal mean overturning circulation (i.e., the Hadley cell). Thus, contrary to the commonly held conceptual understanding that the Hadley cell controls cross-equatorial water transport during this season, we show that the southward transport of water is done primarily in the vapor phase by stationary eddies at nearly all latitudes, including across the equator. Clouds form near the surface in the basin as moist air mixes with cold polar air on the western side of Hellas and are subsequently transported clockwise around the north side of the basin by the low-level cyclonic circulation. The simulated Hellas clouds have small particle sizes (~3–5 μm), are very low, and exist as long as the NPRC is exposed.

M. A. Kahre↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-21838-DND

Correlation relationships between particle microphysical parameters and optical data are investigated. The results show that surface-area concentrations and extinction coefficients are linearly correlated with a correlation coefficient above 0.99 for arbitrary particle size distribution. The correlation relationships that we obtained can be used as constraints in our inversion of optical lidar data. Simulation studies demonstrate a significant stabilization of aerosol microphysical data products if we apply the gradient correlation method (GCM) in our traditional regularization technique.

Alexei Kolgotin↗
NASA NTRS2014

TPSAS-NF1676L-19238-DND

The 24-hour cycle of solar insolation drives diurnal cycles in Earth system processes critical to climate: radiation, convection, turbulence, and cloud processes. Cloud properties, temperature, radiative fluxes, and precipitation exhibit robust diurnal cycles as a result. The presence of these robust diurnal cycles fundamentally changes the time mean and variability of the TOA energy budget. Therefore, there is a need to understand the diurnal cycle contributions to the TOA energy budget in both observations and climate models. The first objective of this study is to quantify the diurnal cycle impact on the time mean and variability of the TOA energy budget in observations defined as the difference between TOA fluxes computed with diurnally uniform and diurnally varying cloud properties. The required observational input is observed from the combined Terra+Aqua Cloud and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) data products ranging from June 2002 through October 2012. The second objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of known errors in the model diurnal cycle simulation on the time mean and variability of the TOA energy budget. The results indicate that (1) the diurnal cycle impacts on the regional time mean Tropical longwave and shortwave fluxes range from 1-3 W m 2 and 5 25 W m 2, respectively; (2) the diurnal cycle contributions to TOA flux variability exceeds 50% in land convective regions (e.g., central South America and central Africa);(3) the diurnal cycle contributions to the TOA shortwave and longwave flux time mean and variability in the CanAM4 GCM are too small in land convective regions due to errors in the diurnal distribution of convective clouds grid box errors exceed 100%.

Patrick C Taylor↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-11084-DND

The solar radiation must be considered as the primary factor when we study the climatic system because it provides almost all energy that drives the climatic system and most atmospheric phenomena. The solar radiation at the TOA is partially transferred, transformed into other forms of energy that are eventually dissipated by the general circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, and partially used in chemical and biological processes. The absorption of solar energy in the atmosphere (Acol) plays a key role in the climate system, not only because it affects the amount of solar energy absorbed by the Earth system, but also because it changes the vertical distribution of absorbed energy, which in turn impacts surface evaporation, atmospheric convection and precipitation. To investigate Acol, we have collected the collocated satellite-surface observations over the 35 selected BSRN surface sites during the period 2000-2004. The surface radiation budgets are averaged from the BSRN Shortwave (SW) observations over a 1-hour interval centered at the time of the NASA Terra and Aqua satellites overpass, and the TOA radiation budgets are averaged from the closest FOV satellite data to the BSRN stations. Then the atmospheric column SW absorption will be inferred from the satellite TOA albedo and BSRN surface absorption (through the estimated surface albedo). Monthly means of Acol, TOA albedo, and surface absorption have been calculated under both clear- and all-sky conditions over the 35 selected BSRN sites which represent different climate regimes. To evaluate the GCM simulations, we have collected the ECHAM5-HAM simulated surface, TOA and atmospheric radiation budgets by researchers at ETH Zurich and compared those simulations with observations. The preliminary comparisons have shown that the ECHAM5 simulated clear-sky surface absorption, TOA albedo, and ACOL agree very well (1-3%) with observations. Under all-sky conditions, they have strong correlations with CERES-derived cloud fraction. The simulated surface absorption is lower and TOA albedo is higher than those under clear skies, but ACOL does not increase too much. However, there are relatively large differences over some regions and months. A further study is needed.

X. Dong↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Climates of Earth’s next Supercontinent: Effects of Tectonics, Rotation Rate & Insolation

We investigate two possible deep future Earth climate scenarios using a 3-D GCM, 200 and 250 million years into the future when the next supercontinent phase is expected to take place. We use knowledge of the evolution of plate tectonics, solar luminosity, and rotation rate over this time period. In one scenario, a supercontinent forms at low latitudes. In the other scenario it forms at high northerly latitudes with an Antarctic subcontinent remaining at the south pole. The climates differences between these two scenarios are dramatic, with differences in mean surface temperatures approaching 4 degrees. The fractional habitability (where mean surface temperatures are between 0<T<100C year round) on land surfaces (as opposed to the ocean) is shown to differ up to 40\% between the two simulations. We believe these demonstrate that the community needs to consider alternative boundary conditions when simulating Earth-like exoplanetary climates. This work has recently been submitted to GRL and can be accessed at the ESSOAr repository.

Supercontinent↗