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NASA NTRS2010

Do the Tallest Convective Cells Over the Tropical Ocean Have Slow Updrafts?

Far from continents, a few storms lift precipitation-size ice particles into the stratosphere, 17 to 18 km above the tropical ocean. This study is the first to examine the observed properties of a large sample of these extremely tall convective storm cells. The central questions in this study are whether the unusually tall ocean cells have the slow updrafts known to be typical of oceanic convection, and if so, how can these tall cells reach such extreme heights. The precipitation radar on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite observed 174 extremely tall oceanic cells from 1998 to 2007. Relative updraft intensity is inferred from 17-km-tall oceanic cells having, on average, a 7-km lower 40-dBZ radar reflectivity height and an order of magnitude less lightning than do equally tall cells over the Sahel region of Africa, a region known for vigorous convective updrafts. Despite some ambiguity, the potential temperature and lapse rate of the NCEP reanalysis suggest that the environment in which these oceanic cells form is conducive to modest updrafts reaching extreme heights. Extrapolating based on the limited coverage of the TRMM satellite radar, it is likely that such extremely tall cells occur more often than once each day somewhere over the tropical ocean.

Kelley, Owen A.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Effects of Lightning and Other Meteorological Factors on Fire Activity in the North American Boreal Forest: Implications for Fire Weather Forecasting

The effects of lightning and other meteorological factors on wildfire activity in the North American boreal forest are statistically analyzed during the fire seasons of 2000-2006 through an integration of the following data sets: the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) level 2 fire products, the 3-hourly 32-kin gridded meteorological data from North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), and the lightning data collected by the Canadian Lightning Detection Network (CLDN) and the Alaska Lightning Detection Network (ALDN). Positive anomalies of the 500 hPa geopotential height field, convective available potential energy (CAPE), number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, and the number of consecutive dry days are found to be statistically important to the seasonal variation of MODIS fire counts in a large portion of Canada and the entirety of Alaska. Analysis of fire occurrence patterns in the eastern and western boreal forest regions shows that dry (in the absence of precipitation) lightning strikes account for only 20% of the total lightning strikes, but are associated with (and likely cause) 40% of the MODIS observed fire counts in these regions. The chance for ignition increases when a threshold of at least 10 dry strikes per NARR grid box and at least 10 consecutive dry days is reached. Due to the orientation of the large-scale pattern, complex differences in fire and lightning occurrence and variability were also found between the eastern and western sub-regions. Locations with a high percentage of dry strikes commonly experience an increased number of fire counts, but the mean number of fire counts per dry strike is more than 50% higher in western boreal forest sub-region, suggesting a geographic and possible topographic influence. While wet lightning events are found to occur with a large range of CAPE values, a high probability for dry lightning occurs only when 500 hPa geopotential heights are above 5700m and CAPE values are near the maximum observed level, underscoring the importance of low-level instability to boreal fire weather forecasts-

Peterson, D.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Effects of Spatial Resolution on the Simulated Dust Aerosol Lifecycle: Implications for Dust Event Magnitude and Timing in the NASA GEOS-5 AGCM

The NASA GEOS-5 atmospheric transport model simulates global aerosol distributions with an online aerosol module. GEOS-5 may be run at various horizontal spatial resolutions depending on the research application. For example, long integration climate simulations are typically run at 2 deg or 1 deg grid spacing, whereas aerosol reanalysis and forecasting applications may be performed at O.5 deg or 0.25 deg resolutions. In this study, we assess the implications of varying spatial resolution on the simulated aerosol fields, with a particular focus on dust. Dust emissions in GEOS-5 are calculated with one of two parameterizations, one based on the Goddard Chemistry, Aerosol, Radiation, and Transport (GO CART) model and another based on the Dust Entrainment and Deposition (DEAD) model. Emission fluxes are parameterized in terms of the surface wind speed, either the 10-m (GO CART) or friction (DEAD) wind speed. We consider how surface wind speeds and thus the dust emission rates are a function of the model spatial resolution. We find that spatial resolution has a significant effect on the magnitude of dust emissions, as higher resolution versions of the model have typically higher surface wind speeds. Utilizing space-borne observations from MISR, MODIS, and CALIOP, we find that simulated Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) distributions respond differently to spatial resolution over the African and Asian source regions, highlighting the need to regional dust emission tuning. When compared to ground-based observations from AERONET, we found improved timing of dust events with as spatial resolution was increased. In an attempt to improve the representation of the dust aerosol lifecycle at coarse resolutions, we found that incorporating the effects of sub-grid wind variability in a course resolution simulation led to improved agreement with observed AOT magnitudes, but did not impact the timing of simulated dust events.

Nowottnick, E.↗
NASA NTRS2010

The 2010 Pakistan Flood and the Russia Heat Wave: Teleconnection of Extremes

The Pakistan flood and the Russia heat wave/Vvild fires of the summer of2010 were two of the most extreme, and catastrophic events in the histories of the two countries occurring at about the same time. To a casual observer, the timing may just be a random coincidence of nature, because the two events were separated by long distances, and represented opposite forces of nature, i.e., flood vs. drought, and water vs. fire. In this paper, using NASA satellite and NOAA reanalysis data, we presented observation evidences that that the two events were indeed physically connected.

Lau, William K.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Phenology Shifts at Start vs. End of Growing Season in Temperate Vegetation Over the Northern Hemisphere for the Period 1982-2008

Changes in vegetative growing seasons are dominant indicators of the dynamic response of ecosystems to climate change. Therefore, knowledge of growing seasons over the past decades is essential to predict ecosystem changes. In this study, the long-term changes in the growing seasons of temperate vegetation over the Northern Hemisphere were examined by analyzing satellite-measured normalized difference vegetation index and reanalysis temperature during 1982 2008. Results showed that the length of the growing season (LOS) increased over the analysis period; however, the role of changes at the start of the growing season (SOS) and at the end of the growing season (EOS) differed depending on the time period. On a hemispheric scale, SOS advanced by 5.2 days in the early period (1982-1999) but advanced by only 0.2 days in the later period (2000-2008). EOS was delayed by 4.3 days in the early period, and it was further delayed by another 2.3 days in the later period. The difference between SOS and EOS in the later period was due to less warming during the preseason (January-April) before SOS compared with the magnitude of warming in the preseason (June September) before EOS. At a regional scale, delayed EOS in later periods was shown. In North America, EOS was delayed by 8.1 days in the early period and delayed by another 1.3 days in the later period. In Europe, the delayed EOS by 8.2 days was more significant than the advanced SOS by 3.2 days in the later period. However, in East Asia, the overall increase in LOS during the early period was weakened in the later period. Admitting regional heterogeneity, changes in hemispheric features suggest that the longer-lasting vegetation growth in recent decades can be attributed to extended leaf senescence in autumn rather than earlier spring leaf-out. Keywords: climate change, growing season, NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index), Northern Hemisphere, phenology,

Jeong, Su-Jong↗
NASA NTRS2011

Use and Limitations of a Climate-Quality Data Record to Study Temperature Trends on the Greenland Ice Sheet

Enhanced melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet has been documented in recent literature along with surface-temperature increases measured using infrared satellite data since 1981. Using a recently-developed climate-quality data record, 11- and 12-year trends in the clear-sky ice-surface temperature (IST) of the Greenland Ice Sheet have been studied using the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) IST product. Daily and monthly MODIS ISTs of the Greenland Ice Sheet beginning on 1 March 2000 and continuing through 31 December 2010 are now available at 6.25-km spatial resolution on a polar stereographic grid as described in Hall et al. (submitted). This record will be elevated in status to a climate-data record (CDR) when more years of data become available either from the MODIS on the Terra or Aqua satellites, or from the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) to be launched in October 2011. Maps showing the maximum extent of melt for the entire ice sheet and for the six major drainage basins have been developed from the MODIS IST dataset. Twelve-year trends of the duration of the melt season on the ice sheet vary in different drainage basins with some basins melting progressively earlier over the course of the study period. Some (but not all) of the basins also show a progressively-longer duration of melt. IST 12-year trends are compared with in-situ data, and climate data from the Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) Reanalysis.

Hall, Dorothy K.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Observational Diagnoses of Extratropical Ozone STE from 2005-2010

The transport of ozone from the stratosphere to the extratropical troposphere is an important boundary condition to tropospheric chemistry. However, previous direct estimates from models and indirect estimates from observations have poorly constrained the magnitude of ozone stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE). In this study we provide a direct diagnosis of the extratropical ozone STE using data from the Microwave Limb Sounder on Aura and output of the MERRA reanalysis over the time period from 2005 to the present. We find that the mean annual STE is about 275 Tg yr-1 and 205 Tg yr-1 in the NH and SH, respectively. The interannual variability of the magnitude is about twice as great in the NH than the SH. This variability is dominated by the seasonal variability during the late winter and spring. A comparison of the ozone flux to the mass flux reveals that there is not a simple relationship between the two quantities. This presentation will also examine the magnitude and distribution of ozone in the lower stratosphere relative to the years of maximum and minimum ozone STE

Olsen, Mark A.↗
NASA NTRS2011

On the Causes and Dynamics of the Early Twentieth Century North American Pluvial

The early twentieth century North American pluvial (1905-1917) was one of the most extreme wet periods of the last five hundred years and directly led to overly generous water allotments in the water-limited American West. Here we examine the causes and dynamics of the pluvial event using a combination of observation-based data sets and general circulation model (GCM) experiments. The character of the moisture surpluses during the pluvial differed by region, alternately driven by increased precipitation (the Southwest), low evaporation from cool temperatures (the Central Plains), or a combination of the two (the Pacific Northwest). Cool temperature anomalies covered much of the west and persisted through most months, part of a globally extensive period of cooler land and sea surface temperatures (SST). Circulation during boreal winter favored increased moisture import and precipitation in the southwest, while other regions and seasons were characterized by near normal or reduced precipitation. Anomalies in the mean circulation, precipitation, and SST fields are partially consistent with the relatively weak El Nino forcing during the pluvial, and also reflect the impact of positive departures in the Arctic Oscillation that occurred in ten of the thirteen pluvial winters. Differences between the reanalysis dataset, an independent statistical drought model, and GCM simulations highlight some of the remaining uncertainties in understanding the full extent of SST forcing of North American hydroclimatic variability.

Cook, Benjamin I.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Observational Diagnoses of Extratropical Ozone STE During the Aura Era

The transport of ozone from the stratosphere to the extratropical troposphere is an important boundary condition to tropospheric chemistry. However, previous direct estimates from models and indirect estimates from observations have poorly constrained the magnitude of ozone stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE). In this study we provide a direct diagnosis of the extratropical ozone STE using data from the Microwave Limb Sounder on Aura and output of the MERRA reanalysis over the time period from 2005 to the present. We find that the mean annual STE is about 275 Tg/yr and 205 Tg/yr in the NH and SH, respectively. The interannual variability of the magnitude is about twice as great in the NH than the SH. We find that this variability is dominated by the seasonal variability during the late winter and spring. A comparison of the ozone flux to the mass flux reveals that there is not a simple relationship between the two quantities. This presentation will also examine the magnitude and distribution of ozone in the lower stratosphere relative to the years of maximum and minimum ozone STE. Finally, we will examine any possible signature of increased ozone STE in the troposphere using sonde and tropospheric ozone residual (TOR) data, and output from the Global Modeling Initiative Chemistry Transport Model (GMI CTM).

Olsen, Mark A.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Atmospheric Blocking and Atlantic Multi-Decadal Ocean Variability

Based on the 20th century atmospheric reanalysis, winters with more frequent blocking, in a band of blocked latitudes from Greenland to Western Europe, are found to persist over several decades and correspond to a warm North Atlantic Ocean, in-phase with Atlantic multi-decadal ocean variability. Atmospheric blocking over the northern North Atlantic, which involves isolation of large regions of air from the westerly circulation for 5 days or more, influences fundamentally the ocean circulation and upper ocean properties by impacting wind patterns. Winters with clusters of more frequent blocking between Greenland and western Europe correspond to a warmer, more saline subpolar ocean. The correspondence between blocked westerly winds and warm ocean holds in recent decadal episodes (especially, 1996-2010). It also describes much longer-timescale Atlantic multidecadal ocean variability (AMV), including the extreme, pre-greenhouse-gas, northern warming of the 1930s-1960s. The space-time structure of the wind forcing associated with a blocked regime leads to weaker ocean gyres and weaker heat-exchange, both of which contribute to the warm phase of AMV.

Haekkinen, Sirpa↗
NASA NTRS2012

Dispersion of the Volcanic Sulfate Cloud from the Mount Pinatubo Eruption

We simulate the transport of the volcanic cloud from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo with the GEOS-5 general circulation model. Our simulations are in good agreement with observational data. We tested the importance of initial condition corresponding to the specific meteorological situation at the time of the eruption by employing reanalysis from MERRA. We found no significant difference in the transport of the cloud. We show how the inclusion of the interaction between volcanic sulfate aerosol and radiation is essential for a reliable simulation of the transport of the volcanic cloud. The absorption of long wave radiation by the volcanic sulfate induces a rising of the volcanic cloud up to the middle stratosphere, combined with divergent motion from the latitude of the eruption to the tropics. Our simulations indicate that the cloud diffuses to the northern hemisphere through a lower stratospheric pathway, and to mid- and high latitudes of the southern hemisphere through a middle stratospheric pathway, centered at about 30 hPa. The direction of the middle stratospheric pathway depends on the season. We did not detect any significant change of the mixing between tropics and mid- and high latitudes in the southern hemisphere.

Aquila, Valentina↗
NASA NTRS2010

A Northward Shift of the North Atlantic Ocean Intertropical Convergence Zone in Response to Summertime Saharan Dust Outbreaks

The influence on the summertime North Atlantic Ocean inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) of Saharan dust outbreaks is explored using nine years of continuous satellite observations and atmospheric reanalysis products. During dust outbreak events rainfall along the ITCZ shifts northward by 1 to 4 degrees latitude. Dust outbreaks coincide with warmer lower-tropospheric temperatures compared to low dust conditions, which is attributable to advection of the warm Saharan Air Layer, enhanced subtropical subsidence, and radiative heating of dust. The enhanced positive meridional temperature gradient coincident with dust outbreaks is accompanied by an acceleration of the easterly winds on the n011h side of the African Easterly Jet (AEJ). The center of the positive vorticity region south of the AEJ moves north drawing the center of low-level convergence and ITCZ rainfall northward with it. The enhanced precipitation on the north side of the ITCZ occurs in spite of widespread sea surface temperature cooling north of the ITCZ owing to reduced surface solar insolation by dust scattering.

Wilcox, Eric M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Cloud Computing Applications in Support of Earth Science Activities at Marshall Space Flight Center

Currently, the NASA Nebula Cloud Computing Platform is available to Agency personnel in a pre-release status as the system undergoes a formal operational readiness review. Over the past year, two projects within the Earth Science Office at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center have been investigating the performance and value of Nebula s "Infrastructure as a Service", or "IaaS" concept and applying cloud computing concepts to advance their respective mission goals. The Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center focuses on the transition of unique NASA satellite observations and weather forecasting capabilities for use within the operational forecasting community through partnerships with NOAA s National Weather Service (NWS). SPoRT has evaluated the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model on virtual machines deployed within Nebula and used Nebula instances to simulate local forecasts in support of regional forecast studies of interest to select NWS forecast offices. In addition to weather forecasting applications, rapidly deployable Nebula virtual machines have supported the processing of high resolution NASA satellite imagery to support disaster assessment following the historic severe weather and tornado outbreak of April 27, 2011. Other modeling and satellite analysis activities are underway in support of NASA s SERVIR program, which integrates satellite observations, ground-based data and forecast models to monitor environmental change and improve disaster response in Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Himalayas. Leveraging SPoRT s experience, SERVIR is working to establish a real-time weather forecasting model for Central America. Other modeling efforts include hydrologic forecasts for Kenya, driven by NASA satellite observations and reanalysis data sets provided by the broader meteorological community. Forecast modeling efforts are supplemented by short-term forecasts of convective initiation, determined by geostationary satellite observations processed on virtual machines powered by Nebula.

Molthan, Andrew L.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Performance Tests of Snow-Related Variables Over the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas Using a New Version of NASA GEOS-5 Land Surface Model that Includes the Snow Darkening Effect

The snow darkening effect, i.e. the reduction of snow albedo, is caused by absorption of solar radiation by absorbing aerosols (dust, black carbon, and organic carbon) deposited on the snow surface. This process is probably important over Himalayan and Tibetan glaciers due to the transport of highly polluted Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC) from the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP). This effect has been incorporated into the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System model, version 5 (GEOS-5) atmospheric transport model. The Catchment land surface model (LSM) used in GEOS-5 considers 3 snow layers. Code was developed to track the mass concentration of aerosols in the three layers, taking into account such processes as the flushing of the compounds as liquid water percolates through the snowpack. In GEOS-5, aerosol emissions, transports, and depositions are well simulated in the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GO CART) module; we recently made the connection between GOCART and the GEOS-5 system fitted with the revised LSM. Preliminary simulations were performed with this new system in "replay" mode (i.e., with atmospheric dynamics guided by reanalysis) at 2x2.5 degree horizontal resolution, covering the period 1 November 2005 - 31 December 2009; we consider the final three years of simulation here. The three simulations used the following variants of the LSM: (1) the original Catchment LSM with a fixed fresh snowfall density of 150 kg m-3 ; (2) the LSM fitted with the new snow albedo code, used here without aerosol deposition but with changes in density formulation and melting water effect on snow specific surface area, (3) the LSM fitted with the new snow albedo code as same as (2) but with fixed aerosol deposition rates (computed from GOCART values averaged over the Tibetan Plateau domain [Ion.: 60-120E; lat.: 20-50N] during March-May 2008) applied to all grid points at every time step. For (2) and (3), the same setting on the fresh snowfall density as in (1) was used.

Yasunari, Tppei J.↗
NASA NTRS2011

The Influence of Summertime Convection Over Southeast Asia on Water Vapor in the Tropical Stratosphere

The relative contributions of Southeast Asian convective source regions during boreal summer to water vapor in the tropical stratosphere are examined using Lagrangian trajectories. Convective sources are identified using global observations of infrared brightness temperature at high space and time resolution, and water vapor transport is simulated using advection-condensation. Trajectory simulations are driven by three different reanalysis data sets, GMAO MERRA, ERA-Interim, and NCEP/NCAR, to establish points of consistency and evaluate the sensitivity of the results to differences in the underlying meteorological fields. All ensembles indicate that Southeast Asia is a prominent boreal summer source of tropospheric air to the tropical stratosphere. Three convective source domains are identified within Southeast Asia: the Bay of Bengal and South Asian subcontinent (MON), the South China and Philippine Seas (SCS), and the Tibetan Plateau and South Slope of the Himalayas (TIB). Water vapor transport into the stratosphere from these three domains exhibits systematic differences that are related to differences in the bulk characteristics of transport. We find air emanating from SCS to be driest, from MON slightly moister, and from TIB moistest. Analysis of pathways shows that air detrained from convection over TIB is most likely to bypass the region of minimum absolute saturation mixing ratio over the equatorial western Pacific; however, the impact of this bypass mechanism on mean water vapor in the tropical stratosphere at 68 hPa is small 0.1 ppmv). This result contrasts with previously published hypotheses, and it highlights the challenge of properly quantifying fluxes of atmospheric humidity.

Wright, J. S.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Land Surface Verification Toolkit (LVT) - A Generalized Framework for Land Surface Model Evaluation

Model evaluation and verification are key in improving the usage and applicability of simulation models for real-world applications. In this article, the development and capabilities of a formal system for land surface model evaluation called the Land surface Verification Toolkit (LVT) is described. LVT is designed to provide an integrated environment for systematic land model evaluation and facilitates a range of verification approaches and analysis capabilities. LVT operates across multiple temporal and spatial scales and employs a large suite of in-situ, remotely sensed and other model and reanalysis datasets in their native formats. In addition to the traditional accuracy-based measures, LVT also includes uncertainty and ensemble diagnostics, information theory measures, spatial similarity metrics and scale decomposition techniques that provide novel ways for performing diagnostic model evaluations. Though LVT was originally designed to support the land surface modeling and data assimilation framework known as the Land Information System (LIS), it also supports hydrological data products from other, non-LIS environments. In addition, the analysis of diagnostics from various computational subsystems of LIS including data assimilation, optimization and uncertainty estimation are supported within LVT. Together, LIS and LVT provide a robust end-to-end environment for enabling the concepts of model data fusion for hydrological applications. The evolving capabilities of LVT framework are expected to facilitate rapid model evaluation efforts and aid the definition and refinement of formal evaluation procedures for the land surface modeling community.

Kumar, Sujay V.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Evaluation of Global Observations-Based Evapotranspiration Datasets and IPCC AR4 Simulations

Quantification of global land evapotranspiration (ET) has long been associated with large uncertainties due to the lack of reference observations. Several recently developed products now provide the capacity to estimate ET at global scales. These products, partly based on observational data, include satellite ]based products, land surface model (LSM) simulations, atmospheric reanalysis output, estimates based on empirical upscaling of eddycovariance flux measurements, and atmospheric water balance datasets. The LandFlux-EVAL project aims to evaluate and compare these newly developed datasets. Additionally, an evaluation of IPCC AR4 global climate model (GCM) simulations is presented, providing an assessment of their capacity to reproduce flux behavior relative to the observations ]based products. Though differently constrained with observations, the analyzed reference datasets display similar large-scale ET patterns. ET from the IPCC AR4 simulations was significantly smaller than that from the other products for India (up to 1 mm/d) and parts of eastern South America, and larger in the western USA, Australia and China. The inter-product variance is lower across the IPCC AR4 simulations than across the reference datasets in several regions, which indicates that uncertainties may be underestimated in the IPCC AR4 models due to shared biases of these simulations.

Mueller, B.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Estimating Evapotranspiration Using an Observation Based Terrestrial Water Budget

Evapotranspiration (ET) is difficult to measure at the scales of climate models and climate variability. While satellite retrieval algorithms do exist, their accuracy is limited by the sparseness of in situ observations available for calibration and validation, which themselves may be unrepresentative of 500m and larger scale satellite footprints and grid pixels. Here, we use a combination of satellite and ground-based observations to close the water budgets of seven continental scale river basins (Mackenzie, Fraser, Nelson, Mississippi, Tocantins, Danube, and Ubangi), estimating mean ET as a residual. For any river basin, ET must equal total precipitation minus net runoff minus the change in total terrestrial water storage (TWS), in order for mass to be conserved. We make use of precipitation from two global observation-based products, archived runoff data, and TWS changes from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellite mission. We demonstrate that while uncertainty in the water budget-based estimates of monthly ET is often too large for those estimates to be useful, the uncertainty in the mean annual cycle is small enough that it is practical for evaluating other ET products. Here, we evaluate five land surface model simulations, two operational atmospheric analyses, and a recent global reanalysis product based on our results. An important outcome is that the water budget-based ET time series in two tropical river basins, one in Brazil and the other in central Africa, exhibit a weak annual cycle, which may help to resolve debate about the strength of the annual cycle of ET in such regions and how ET is constrained throughout the year. The methods described will be useful for water and energy budget studies, weather and climate model assessments, and satellite-based ET retrieval optimization.

Rodell, Matthew↗