Richard P. Allan & Brian J. Soden, Atmospheric warming and the amplification of precipitation extremes

 www.sciencexpress.org / 7 August 2008 / Page 2 / 10.1126/science.116078


Atmospheric Warming and the Amplification of Precipitation Extremes 


Richard P. Allan¹* and Brian J. Soden²


¹Environmental Systems Science Centre, University of Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6AL, U.K.


²Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, FL 33149, USA. 



Abstract

Climate models suggest that extreme precipitation events will become more common in an anthropogenically warmed climate. However observational limitations have hindered a direct evaluation of model projected changes in extreme precipitation. Here we use satellite observations and model simulations to examine the 

response of tropical precipitation events to naturally driven changes in surface temperature and atmospheric 
moisture content. These observations reveal a distinct link between rainfall extremes and temperature, with heavy rain events increasing during warm periods and decreasing during cold periods. Furthermore, the 
observed amplification of rainfall extremes is found to be larger than predicted by models, implying that 
projections of future changes in rainfall extremes due to anthropogenic global warming may be underestimated. 


*Correspondence e-mail: r.p.allan@reading.ac.uk

http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2008/08/07/15/rainwarm.source.prod_affiliate.56.pdf

K. E. Trenberth et al., J. Climate (2011), Atmospheric moisture transports from ocean to land and global energy flows in reanalyses

Journal of Climate, 2011; e-View, doi: 10.1175/2011JCLI4171.1

Atmospheric moisture transports from ocean to land and global energy flows in reanalyses

Kevin E. Trenberth, John T. Fasullo and Jessica Mackaro

National Center for Atmospheric Research ¹, P. O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307, email: trenbert@ucar.edu, ph: (303) 497 1318, fax: (303) 497 1333

Abstract

An assessment is made of the global energy and hydrological cycles from eight current atmospheric reanalyses and their depiction of changes over time. A brief evaluation of the water and energy cycles in the latest version of the NCAR climate model, CCSM4, is also given. The focus is on the mean ocean, land and global precipitation P, the corresponding evaporation E, their difference corresponding to the surface freshwater flux E-P, and the vertically integrated atmospheric moisture transports. Using the model-based P and E, the time and area average E-P for the oceans, P-E for land, and the moisture transport from ocean to land should all be identical but are not close in most reanalyses, and often differ significantly from observational estimates of the surface return flow based on net river discharge into the oceans. Their differences reveal outstanding issues with atmospheric models and their biases, which are manifested as analysis increments in the reanalyses. The NCAR CCSM4 model, along with most reanalysis models, the exception being MERRA, has too intense water cycling (P and E) over the ocean although ocean to land transports are very close to observed.

Precipitation from reanalyses that assimilate moisture from satellite observations exhibits large changes identified with the changes in the observing system, as new and improved temperature and water vapor channels are assimilated and, while Pimproves after about 2002, E-P does not. Discrepancies among hydrological cycle components arise from analysis increments that can add or subtract moisture. The large-scale moisture budget divergences are more stable in time and similar across reanalyses than model-based estimates of E-P. Results are consistent with the view that recycling of moisture is too large in most models and the lifetime of moisture is too short. For the energy cycle, most reanalyses have spurious imbalances ~10 W m⁻² within the atmosphere, and ~5–10 W m⁻² in net fluxes into the surface and to space. Major improvements are needed in model treatment and assimilation of moisture, and surface fluxes from reanalyses should only be used with great caution.

Received October 24, 2010; revised April 7, 2011

¹The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4171.1

G. Svensson & J. Karlsson, J. Climate (2011), On the Arctic wintertime climate in global climate models

Journal of Climate, 2011; e-View, doi: 10.1175/2011JCLI4012.1

On the Arctic wintertime climate in global climate models

Gunilla Svensson*

Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Johannes Karlsson

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA

Abstract

Energy fluxes important for determining the Arctic surface temperatures during winter in present-day simulations from the CMIP3 Multi-Model dataset are investigated. The model results are evaluated over different surfaces using satellite retrievals and ERA-Interim. The wintertime turbulent heat fluxes vary substantially between models and different surfaces. The monthly median net turbulent heat flux (upward) is in the range 100 to 200 Wm⁻² and −15 to 15 Wm⁻² over open ocean and sea-ice, respectively. The simulated net longwave radiative flux at the surface is biased high over both surfaces compared to observations, but for different reasons. Over open ocean, most models overestimate the outgoing longwave flux while over sea-ice it is rather the downwelling flux that is underestimated. Based on the downwelling longwave flux over sea-ice, two categories of models are found. One group of models which shows reasonable downwelling longwave fluxes, compared with observations and ERA-Interim, is also associated with relatively high amounts of precipitable water as well as surface skin temperatures. This group also shows more uniform air mass properties over the Arctic region possibly as result of more frequent events of warm-air intrusion from lower latitudes. The second group of models underestimates the downwelling longwave radiation and is associated with relatively low surface skin temperatures as well as low amounts of precipitable water. These models also exhibit larger decrease in the moisture and temperature profiles northward in the Arctic region which might be indicative of too stagnant conditions in these models.

*Corresponding author address: Gunilla Svensson, Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockhholm, Sweden., E-mail: gunilla@misu.su.se

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4012.1

F. Giorgi et al., J. Climate (2011), Higher hydroclimatic intensity with global warming

Journal of Climate, 2011; e-View, doi: 10.1175/2011JCLI3979.1

Higher hydroclimatic intensity with global warming

F. Giorgi*, E-S. Im*, E. Coppola*, N. S. Diffenbaugh**, X. J. Gao***, L. Mariotti*, and Y. Shi***

* Earth System Physics Section, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy

** Department of Environmental Earth System Science and Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

*** National Climate Center, Chinese Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China

Abstract

Because of their dependence on water, natural and human systems are highly sensitive to changes in the hydrologic cycle. We introduce a new measure of hydroclimatic intensity (HY-INT), which integrates metrics of precipitation intensity and dry spell length, viewing the response of these two metrics to global warming as deeply interconnected. Using a suite of global and regional climate model experiments, we find that increasing HY-INT is a consistent and ubiquitous signature of 21st century greenhouse gas-induced global warming. Depending on the region, the increase in HY-INT is due to an increase in precipitation intensity, dry spell length, or both. Late 20th century observations also exhibit dominant positive HY-INT trends, providing a hydroclimatic signature of late 20th century warming. We find that increasing HY-INT is physically consistent with the response of both precipitation intensity and dry spell length to global warming. Precipitation intensity increases due to increased atmospheric water holding capacity. Rather, increases in mean precipitation are tied to increases in surface evaporation rates, which are lower than for atmospheric moisture. This leads to a reduction in the number of wet days and an increase in dry spell length. Our analysis identifies increasing hydroclimatic intensity as a robust integrated response to global warming, implying increasing risks for systems that are sensitive to wet and dry extremes and providing a potential target for detection and attribution of hydroclimatic changes.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI3979.1

Tas van Ommen: Warmer oceans release CO2 faster than thought

Warmer oceans release CO₂ faster than thought

by Wendy Zukerman, New Scientist, April 25, 2011

As the world's oceans warm, their massive stores of dissolved carbon dioxide may be quick to bubble back out into the atmosphere and amplify the greenhouse effect, according to a new study.

The oceans capture around 30% of human carbon dioxide emissions and hide it in their depths. This slows the march of global warming somewhat. But climate records from the end of the last ice age show that as temperatures climb, the trend reverses and the oceans emit CO2, which exacerbates warming.

Previous studies have suggested that it takes between 400 and 1,300 years for this to happen. But now the most precise analysis to date has whittled that figure down.

Quick response

"We now think the delay is more like 200 years, possibly even less," says Tas van Ommen from the Australian Antarctic Division, in Hobart, who led the study.

The new results come from Siple and Byrd ice cores in western Antarctica. Van Ommen and colleagues dated CO₂ bubbles trapped in the ice, and then compared their measurements with records of atmospheric temperatures from the same time period.

As expected, when temperature increased, carbon dioxide followed, but at both Siple and Byrd the time lag was around 200 years – much shorter than previous studies found.

Rising temperatures make carbon dioxide leak from the oceans for two main reasons. First, melting sea ice increases the rate that the ocean mixes, which dredges up CO₂-rich deep ocean waters. Second, "when you warm the ocean up, just like warming up a Coke bottle, it drives the gas out," says van Ommen.

Previous estimates used cores from regions with low snowfall, van Ommen says, leading to a very gradual trapping of the carbon dioxide in the ice. This increased uncertainty in timing. Also, many previous studies used only one ice core site.

Worse warming?

And while more precise than the others, the team's study also comes with significant uncertainty: plus or minus 200 years, meaning there could actually be no lag time between rising temperatures and gases being released from the atmosphere.

"They've nailed it," says Paul Fraser, a greenhouse gas researcher at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). He adds that despite the uncertainty, "this is a really good data set that they've got."

Van Ommen says climate modelling will be needed before we can speculate how the results relate to current warming.

The work was presented at the Greenhouse 2011 conference in Cairns earlier this month.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20413-warmer-oceans-release-co2-faster-than-thought.html

Top climate scientist, Kevin Trenberth, on the monster tornadoes: ‘It is irresponsible not to mention climate change’

Top Climate Scientist On The Monster Tornadoes: ‘It Is Irresponsible Not To Mention Climate Change’

by Brad Johnson, The Wonk Room, Think Progress, April 29, 2011

Throughout human history, the climate system has been a source of life and death, the sun and rain capable of feeding our crops and bringing us comfort, or unleashing terrible devastation in wind, fire, drought, storm, and flood. Each tragedy that occurs — such as the terrible outbreak of tornadoes and flooding storms this week in the South — reminds us of that awesome power, which is beyond our control and at the limits of our comprehension. We have also learned that humanity is meddling with that power, primarily through the burning of coal and oil that increases the amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere and oceans. Scientists have been warning our leaders for decades that this interference with the climate system is dangerous, and have worked tirelessly to explain how these threats are now coming to pass.

However, the Republican Party is now dominated by ideologues who deny the threat of polluting our climate, even when faced with direct evidence of what the climate system can do to the people they are sworn to protect.

Conservatives attack any discussion of climate policy within the context of the killer tornadoes as “grotesque,” saying that to do so is blaming the victims.

In an email interview with ThinkProgress, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, one of the world’s top climate scientists, who has been exploring for years how greenhouse pollution influences extreme weather, said he believes that it is “irresponsible not to mention climate change” in the context of these extreme tornadoes, adding that the scientific understanding of how polluting our atmosphere with billions of tons of greenhouse gases affects tornadic activity is still ongoing:

It is irresponsible not to mention climate change. … The environment in which all of these storms and the tornadoes are occurring has changed from human influences (global warming). Tornadoes come from thunderstorms in a wind shear environment. This occurs east of the Rockies more than anywhere else in the world. The wind shear is from southerly (SE, S or SW) flow from the Gulf overlaid by westerlies aloft that have come over the Rockies. That wind shear can be converted to rotation. The basic driver of thunderstorms is the instability in the atmosphere: warm moist air at low levels with drier air aloft. With global warming the low level air is warm and moister and there is more energy available to fuel all of these storms and increase the buoyancy of the air so that thunderstorms are strong. There is no clear research on changes in shear related to global warming. On average the low level air is 1 °F and 4% moister than in the 1970s.

Climate scientist Michael Mann explains further that “climate change is present in every single meteorological event”:

The fact remains that there is 4% more water vapor – and associated additional moist energy – available both to power individual storms and to produce intense rainfall from them. Climate change is present in every single meteorological event, in that these events are occurring within a baseline atmospheric environment that has shifted in favor of more intense weather events.

Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt concurred:

It is a truism to say that everything has been affected by climate change so far and therefore this latest outbreak must in some sense have been affected, but attribution is hard and the further down the chain the causality is supposed to go, the harder this is. For heat waves it is easier, for statistics on precipitation intensity it easier – there are multiple levels of good modelling, theory and observations to back it up. But we have much less to go on with tornadoes.

Those who deny the threat of polluting our climate system are not to blame for its fury — but none of us can shirk our responsibility to end our interference with the weather.

To find out if loved ones are okay, use safeandwell.org. Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to relief efforts.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2011/04/29/tornadoes-irresponsible-denial/

NOAA's National Weather Service: U.S. Tornadoes -- Daily Counts and Annual Running Trends*

NOAA: U.S. Tornadoes -- Daily Counts and Annual Running Trends*

Daily Counts and Annual Running Trend (Updated Frequently)
Click for full image --->    Tornado Reports       |       Hail Reports       |       Wind Reports
Plot of the annual running total of U.S. tornadoes. (Click on image for a full resolution version.)
Plot of the annual running total of tornado reports compared to inflation adjusted values. (Click on graph for a full description.) http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/

Early Warning Signal for Ecosystem Collapse: Fluctuations Before the Fall

ScienceDaily, April 28, 2011 — Researchers eavesdropping on complex signals emanating from a remote Wisconsin lake have detected what they say is an unmistakable warning -- a death knell -- of the impending collapse of the lake's aquatic ecosystem. Researchers have found that models used to assess catastrophic changes in economic and medical systems can also predict environmental collapse. Stock market crashes, epileptic seizures, and ecological breakdowns are all preceded by a measurable increase in variance—be it fluctuations in brain waves, the Dow Jones index, or, in the case of the Wisconsin lake, chlorophyll.

The finding, reported April 29, 2011, in the journal Science by a team of researchers led by Stephen Carpenter, a limnologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the first experimental evidence that radical change in an ecosystem can be detected in advance, possibly in time to prevent ecological catastrophe.

"For a long time, ecologists thought these changes couldn't be predicted," says Carpenter, a UW-Madison professor of zoology and one of the world's foremost ecologists. "But we've now shown that they can be foreseen. The early warning is clear. It is a strong signal."

The implications of the National Science Foundation-supported study are big, says Carpenter. They suggest that, with the right kind of monitoring, it may be possible to track the vital signs of any ecosystem and intervene in time to prevent what is often irreversible damage to the environment.

"With more work, this could revolutionize ecosystem management," Carpenter avers. "The concept has now been validated in a field experiment and the fact that it worked in this lake opens the door to testing it in rangelands, forests and marine ecosystems."

Ecosystems often change in radical ways. Lakes, forests, rangelands, coral reefs and many other ecosystems are often transformed by such things as overfishing, insect pests, chemical changes in the environment, overgrazing and shifting climate.

For humans, ecosystem change can impact economies and livelihoods such as when forests succumb to an insect pest, rangelands to overgrazing, or fisheries to overexploitation.

A vivid example of a collapsed resource is the Atlantic cod fishery. Once the most abundant and sought-after fish in the North Atlantic, cod stocks collapsed in the 1990s due to overfishing, causing widespread economic hardship in New England and Canada. Now, the ability to detect when an ecosystem is approaching the tipping point could help prevent such calamities.

In the new study, the Wisconsin researchers, collaborating with groups from the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis., focused their attention on Peter and Paul lakes, two isolated and undeveloped lakes in northern Wisconsin. Peter is a six-acre lake whose biota were manipulated for the study and nearby Paul served as a control.

The group led by Carpenter experimentally manipulated Peter Lake during a three-year period by gradually adding predatory largemouth bass to the lake, which was previously dominated by small fish that consumed water fleas, a type of zooplankton. The purpose, Carpenter notes, was to destabilize the lake's food web to the point where it would become an ecosystem dominated by large predators. In the process, the researchers expected to see a relatively rapid cascading change in the lake's biological community, one that would affect all of its plants and animals in significant ways.

"We started adding these big ferocious fish and almost immediately this instills fear in the other fish," Carpenter explains. "The small fish begin to sense there is trouble and they stop going into the open water and instead hang around the shore and structure, things like sunken logs. They become risk averse."

The biological upshot, according to the Wisconsin lake expert, is that the lake became "water flea heaven." The system becomes one where the phytoplankton, the preferred food of the lake's water fleas, becomes highly variable.

"The phytoplankton get hammered and at some point the system snaps into a new mode," says Carpenter.

Throughout the lake's three-year manipulation, all its chemical, biological and physical vital signs were continuously monitored to track even the smallest changes that would announce what ecologists call a "regime shift," where an ecosystem undergoes radical and rapid change from one type to another. It was in these massive sets of data that Carpenter and his colleagues were able to detect the signals of the ecosystem's impending collapse.

Ecologists first discovered the signals in computer simulations of spruce budworm outbreaks. Every few decades the insect's populations explode, causing widespread deforestation in boreal forests in Canada. Computer models of a virtual outbreak, however, seemed to undergo odd blips just before an outbreak.

The problem was solved by William "Buz" Brock, a UW-Madison professor of economics who for decades has worked on the mathematical connections of economics and ecology. Brock used a branch of applied mathematics known as bifurcation theory to show that the odd behavior was in fact an early warning of catastrophic change. In short, he devised a way to sense the transformation of an ecosystem by detecting subtle changes in the system's natural patterns of variability.

The upshot of the Peter Lake field experiment, says Carpenter, is a validated statistical early warning system for ecosystem collapse. The catch, however, is that for the early warning system to work, intense and continuous monitoring of an ecosystem's chemistry, physical properties and biota are required.

Such an approach may not be practical for every threatened ecosystem, says Carpenter, but he also cites the price of doing nothing: "These regime shifts tend to be hard to reverse. It is like a runaway train once it gets going and the costs -- both ecological and economic -- are high."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428143149.htm

Record Number of Whales, Krill Found in Antarctic Bays

Record Number of Whales, Krill Found in Antarctic Bays

ScienceDaily, April 28, 2011 — Scientists have observed a "super-aggregation" of more than 300 humpback whales gorging on the largest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in more than 20 years in bays along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

The sightings, made in waters still largely ice-free deep into austral autumn, suggest the previously little-studied bays are important late-season foraging grounds for the endangered whales. But they also highlight how rapid climate change is affecting the region.

The Duke University-led team tracked the super-aggregation of krill and whales during a six-week expedition to Wilhelmina Bay and surrounding waters in May 2009. They published their findings on April 27 in the online science journal PLoS ONE.

"Such an incredibly dense aggregation of whales and krill has never been seen before in this area at this time of year," says Duke marine biologist Douglas Nowacek. Most studies have focused on whale foraging habitats located in waters farther offshore in austral summer.

Nowacek and his colleagues observed 306 humpback whales -- or about 5.1 whales per square kilometer, the highest density ever recorded -- in Wilhelmina Bay. They measured the krill biomass at about 2 million tons. Small, floating fragments of brash ice covered less than 10 percent of the bay. The team returned in May 2010 and recorded similar numbers. Smaller but still higher-than-normal counts were also reported in neighboring Andvord Bay.

Advancing winter sea ice used to cover much of the peninsula's bays and fjords by May, protecting krill and forcing humpback whales to migrate elsewhere to find food, Nowacek says. But rapid climate change in the area over the last 50 years has significantly reduced the extent, and delayed the annual arrival, of the ice cover, says Nowacek, who is the Repass-Rodgers University Associate Professor of Conservation Technology.

"The lack of sea ice is good news for the whales in the short term, providing them with all-you-can-eat feasts as the krill migrate vertically toward the bay's surface each night. But it is bad news in the long term for both species, and for everything else in the Southern Ocean that depends on krill," says Ari S. Friedlaender, co-principal investigator on the project and a research scientist at Duke.

Antarctic krill are shrimp-like creatures that feed primarily on phytoplankton and live in large swarms in the Southern Ocean. Penguins, seals, seabirds and many whale species rely on the protein-rich, pinky-sized crustaceans as a source of food. Commercial fisheries are allowed to harvest up to 3 ½ tons of the krill a year as food for farm-raised salmon and for oil, rich in omega-3 acids, which is used in human dietary supplements.

Around the Western Antarctic Peninsula, krill migrate in austral autumn from open ocean waters to phytoplankton-rich bays and fjords, where juveniles feed and the population overwinters under the protective cover of ice. There is a strong correlation between the amount of sea ice and the amount of krill that survive the long, harsh Antarctic winter.

"If there are more areas with large aggregations of krill hanging out in waters where sea ice has diminished, you could see a big decrease in the standing krill stock, especially if we have a few years of back-to-back bad ice and the krill can't replenish themselves," Friedlaender says.

Scientists already have documented drops in krill abundance over the last 50 years related to reduced sea ice cover. Further drops could have far-reaching consequences. Seals and penguins have a relatively small foraging range, and some can't eat any prey other than krill or hunt without the presence of sea ice. Whales can migrate longer distances and might be able to find food elsewhere, but may be affected in other ways, as evidenced by snippets of unexpected sounds being transmitted by 11 whales the Duke team tagged in the study.

"We're starting to hear songs being produced by whales in the Antarctic -- sexual advertisements typically heard only in humpback breeding grounds that are located thousands of miles away from these bays," Friedlaender says.

Humpback whales typically reproduce once every three years, "so if a female doesn't have to go to the breeding grounds every year -- if she has access to food here and isn't being forced out by sea cover -- why should she leave?" Nowacek says. The presence of more females, coupled with access to a nightly krill feast, entices more males to stick around too. "So this may affect the timing and location of humpback breeding and other important lifecycle events."

Consideration of these factors, and the effects of rapid climate change, on krill dynamics will be critical to managing sustainable krill harvests and the continued recovery of baleen whales in the Southern Ocean, he says.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110427171503.htm

Douglas P. Nowacek et al., PLoS ONE, Super-Aggregations of Krill and Humpback Whales in Wilhelmina Bay, Antarctic Peninsula

PLoS ONE, 6(4) (2011) e19173; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019173

Super-Aggregations of Krill and Humpback Whales in Wilhelmina Bay, Antarctic Peninsula

Douglas P. Nowacek^1*, Ari S. Friedlaender¹, Patrick N. Halpin¹, Elliott L. Hazen^1,2, David W. Johnston¹, Andrew J. Read¹, Boris Espinasse³, Meng Zhou⁴, and Yiwu Zhu⁴

1 Nicholas School of the Environment and Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University Marine Laboratory, Beaufort, NC, U.S.A., 2 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Fisheries Environmental Lab and University of Hawaii JIMAR, Pacific Grove, CA, U.S.A., 3 Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Biogéochimique, Centre Océanologique de Marseille, CNRS, Université de la Méditerranée, Campus de Luminy, Marseille, France, 4 Department of Environment, Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, U.S.A.

Abstract

Ecological relationships of krill and whales have not been explored in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), and have only rarely been studied elsewhere in the Southern Ocean. In the austral autumn we observed an extremely high density (5.1 whales per km²) of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) feeding on a super-aggregation of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) in Wilhelmina Bay. The krill biomass was approximately 2 million tons, distributed over an area of 100 km² at densities of up to 2000 individuals m⁻³; reports of such ‘super-aggregations’ of krill have been absent in the scientific literature for >20 years. Retentive circulation patterns in the Bay entrained phytoplankton and meso-zooplankton that were grazed by the krill. Tagged whales rested during daylight hours and fed intensively throughout the night as krill migrated toward the surface. We infer that the previously unstudied WAP embayments are important foraging areas for whales during autumn and, furthermore, that meso-scale variation in the distribution of whales and their prey are important features of this system. Recent decreases in the abundance of Antarctic krill around the WAP have been linked to reductions in sea ice, mediated by rapid climate change in this area. At the same time, baleen whale populations in the Southern Ocean, which feed primarily on krill, are recovering from past exploitation. Consideration of these features and the effects of climate change on krill dynamics are critical to managing both krill harvests and the recovery of baleen whales in the Southern Ocean.

Citation: Nowacek DP, Friedlaender AS, Halpin PN, Hazen EL, Johnston DW, et al. (2011) Super-Aggregations of Krill and Humpback Whales in Wilhelmina Bay, Antarctic Peninsula. PLoS ONE, 6(4) (2011) e19173; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019173


http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0019173

V. Masson-Delmotte et al., Clim. Past (2011), A comparison of the present and last interglacial periods in six Antarctic ice cores

Climate of the Past, 7 (2011) 397-423; doi:10.5194/cp-7-397-2011. www.clim-past.net/7/397/2011/

A comparison of the present and last interglacial periods in six Antarctic ice cores

V. Masson-Delmotte¹, D. Buiron², A. Ekaykin³, M. Frezzotti⁴, H. Gallée², J. Jouzel¹, G. Krinner², A. Landais¹, H. Motoyama⁵, H. Oerter⁶, K. Pol¹, D. Pollard⁷, C. Ritz², E. Schlosser⁸, L. C. Sime⁹, H. Sodemann¹⁰, B. Stenni¹¹, R. Uemura^1,12, and F. Vimeux^1,13
1Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnemen, IPSL-CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, UMR 8212, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
²CNRS and UJF, Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE, UMR 5183), Grenoble, France
³Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, 38 Beringa St., 199397 St. Petersburg, Russia
⁴ENEA, Rome, Italy
⁵Research Organization of Information and Systems, National Institute of Polar Research, 10-3, Midoricho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, 190-8518, Japan
⁶Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Helmholtz Association, Bremerhaven, Germany
⁷Earth and Environmental System Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA
⁸Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
⁹British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK
¹⁰Norwegian Institute for Air Research, NILU, Kjeller, Norway
¹¹Department of Geosciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
¹²Department of Chemistry, Biology and Marine Science, University of the Ryukyus, Nishihara, Okinawa, Japan
¹³Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, IRD, Laboratoire HydroSciences Montpellier, HSM, UMR 5569, CNRS-IRD-UM1-UM2, Montpellier, France
Abstract

We compare the present and last interglacial periods as recorded in Antarctic water stable isotope records now available at various temporal resolutions from six East Antarctic ice cores: Vostok, Taylor Dome, EPICA Dome C (EDC), EPICA Dronning Maud Land (EDML), Dome Fuji and the recent TALDICE ice core from Talos Dome. We first review the different modern site characteristics in terms of ice flow, meteorological conditions, precipitation intermittency and moisture origin, as depicted by meteorological data, atmospheric reanalyses and Lagrangian moisture source diagnostics. These different factors can indeed alter the relationships between temperature and water stable isotopes. Using five records with sufficient resolution on the EDC3 age scale, common features are quantified through principal component analyses. Consistent with instrumental records and atmospheric model results, the ice core data depict rather coherent and homogenous patterns in East Antarctica during the last two interglacials. Across the East Antarctic plateau, regional differences, with respect to the common East Antarctic signal, appear to have similar patterns during the current and last interglacials. We identify two abrupt shifts in isotopic records during the glacial inception at TALDICE and EDML, likely caused by regional sea ice expansion. These regional differences are discussed in terms of moisture origin and in terms of past changes in local elevation histories, which are compared to ice sheet model results. Our results suggest that elevation changes may contribute significantly to inter-site differences. These elevation changes may be underestimated by current ice sheet models.

© Author(s) 2011. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Final Revised Paper (PDF, 4492 KB)   Discussion Paper (CPD)   

Citation: Masson-Delmotte, V., Buiron, D., Ekaykin, A., Frezzotti, M., Gallée, H., Jouzel, J., Krinner, G., Landais, A., Motoyama, H., Oerter, H., Pol, K., Pollard, D., Ritz, C., Schlosser, E., Sime, L. C., Sodemann, H., Stenni, B., Uemura, R., and Vimeux, F.: A comparison of the present and last interglacial periods in six Antarctic ice cores, Clim. Past, 7, 397-423, doi:10.5194/cp-7-397-2011, 2011.


http://www.clim-past.net/7/397/2011/cp-7-397-2011.html

Neven: Flushing out the Fjord (Jakobshavn Isbræ)

Flushing out the Fjord

by Neven, Arctic Sea Ice Blog, April 13, 2011

I wrote a blog post on Jakobshavn Isbræ last year when a 7-square-kilometer (2.7 square mile) section of the glacier broke up. Here's some basic information from Wikipedia on one of the most important Greenland glaciers, with an image of the glacier on August 5th last year (the glacier is on the bottom right, with the fjord in front of it filled with icebergs):

Jakobshavn Isbræ drains 6.5% of the Greenland ice sheet and produces around 10% of all Greenland icebergs. Some 35 billion tonnes of icebergs calve off and pass out of the fjord every year. Icebergs breaking from the glacier are often so large (up to a kilometer in height) that they are too tall to float down the fjord and lie stuck on the bottom of its shallower areas, sometimes for years, until they are broken up by the force of the glacier and icebergs further up the fjord.

Well, it appears that something convinced those icebergs to get a move on, because in just a few weeks time the Illulisat Isfjord has been flushed clean. On February 26th (day 57), resident Arctic expert Lodger informed us in Open Thread 6 that some of those icebergs had left the fjord. I didn't think much of it at the time (couldn't be bothered really, as images were too cloudy). On March 1st (day 60), everything seemed to be just hunky dory again, with gaps neatly frozen over, but apparently this was just a prelude to the Great Flushing.  I've made a reconstruction with a handful of satellite images that were clear enough to be used from day 52 (Feb. 21st) to day 102 (April 12th). Check out the Royal Flush between days 82 and 83:

The reason I decided to have another look at Jakobshavn was a post from April 10th I read on the NASA Operation IceBridge blog, written by Kathryn Hansen, called Mission Mop up:

After hitting some clouds as expected from the morning's weather brief, we headed back north and reflew the center flow line of Jakobshavn -- always spectacular -- before flying over Illulisat Isfjord, which was surprisingly free of ice. The reason for the ice-free conditions was unknown to scientists onboard. There could have been fewer calving events, warmer water, or wind patterns that pushed ice out of the area.

"Half of the Illulisat Isfjord was open water with several fishing boats in the area, something I have never seen before," said Michael Studinger, the mission's project scientist.

A camera mounted on the belly of the aircraft captured this image of a fishing boat (top) in the Illulisat flord, which was mostly open water with a few visible patches of ice. Credit: NASA/DMS team

Me? I think 'twas the wind.

Here's an animation of the full MODIS images of the region (r02c02). We can clearly see the ice floes in Disko and Baffin Bay retreat northwards full-speed around the time of the Royal Flush:

http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2011/04/flushing-out-the-fjord.html

Tennessee Valley Authority: “We have never experienced such a major weather event in our history”; Mal-adapation: Missouri levee failure at Poplar Bluffs highlights need to increase infrastructure investments and prepare for climate change

Tennessee Valley Authority: “We have never experienced such a major weather event in our history”

Mal-adapation: Missouri levee failure highlights need to increase infrastructure investments and prepare for climate change

by Joseph Romm, Climate Progress, April 28, 2011

TVA COO:  Wednesday’s series of storms caused major damage to the TVA power system. We have never experienced such a major weather event in our history… 

Hundreds of thousands of consumers are without power because of damage to power lines and other equipment…  The three units at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in northern Alabama automatically shutdown [safely] as a result of transmission line damage from the storm.

One thing is clear from all of the extreme weather slamming the United States:  We are ill-prepared for human-caused climate change, whose primary near-term impact on most Americans will be from the ever-worsening weather extremes.

The warming and the deluges are connected (see Masters: Midwest deluge enhanced by near-record Gulf of Mexico sea surface temperatures).  Capitol Climate has just aggregated the data from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center on “Monthly total number of daily high temperature, low temperature, and high minimum temperature records set in the U.S.” for the last few months. 

April was very extreme:

Steve Scolnik” reports April has seen “1759 record high temperatures in the U.S. vs. 310 record lows, a ratio of nearly 5.7 to 1, exceeding even March’s 5.3 to 1. This is the highest since the ratio of 6.1 last April.”  That compares to the ratio for the last decade of 2.04-to-1, which itself was double the ratio of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s (see “Record high temperatures far outpace record lows across U.S.“).  So U.S. temperatures are becoming more extreme — and April has been unusually extreme.

Water and climate scientist Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute, has a good HuffPost piece on “A Cost of Denying Climate Change: Accelerating Climate Disruptions, Death, and Destruction.”  Of course, if the do-nothing crowd keeps denying the reality of climate science, and the climate activists downplay the reality of climate change, as some argue they should, then we are certainly never going to get prepared for what is to come (see “Conservatives oppose adaptation, too”).  That’s why ClimateProgress has a whole category devoted to extreme weather and the best science on how it is linked to human-caused climate change.

As long as folks deny or downplay the connection, adaptation will be little more than a euphemism for abandonment, triage, and misery.  Of course, we aren’t even “adapting” to the current level of extreme weather.

We didn’t build levees capable of protecting New Orleans from a major hurricane storm surge before Katrina — and we still haven’t prepared it for a Category Five storm even though we know it is inevitable one will hit the city.

It is not just New Orleans that is unprepared for our present level of extreme weather, as WonkRoom explains in “Missouri Levee Failure Highlights Need For Increased Infrastructure Investments,” reposted below:

For several days, the midwest and southern U.S. have been pounded by deadly storms, which have brought tornadoes and widespread flooding. Today, a levee in Poplar Bluffs, Missouri, failed in at least four locations, which is “expected to send flood waters from the Black River racing into a populated but rural area of Butler County.” 

It is currently unclear how many people will be affected by the flooding, but the threat of the levee failing at another location prompted the evacuation of 1,000 people.

The levee’s failure is a tragic reminder of the sorry state of America’s infrastructure. This particular levee failed a federal inspection in 2008, receiving an “unacceptable” rating from the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers. In the U.S. patchwork levee system, many local communities are responsible for levee upkeep, and this particular community couldn’t afford the cost. 

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, nearly 10% of the levees in the country are expected to fail during a flood event. The Civil Corps. of Engineers gave the U.S. levee system a D- grade in 2009, and estimated that it would take a $50 billion investment to get those levees into adequate shape:

“During the past 50 years there has been tremendous development on lands protected by levees. Coupled with the fact that many levees have not been well maintained, this burgeoning growth has put people and infrastructure at risk—the perceived safety provided by levees has inadvertently increased flood risks by attracting development to the floodplain. Continued population growth and economic development behind levees is considered by many to be the dominant factor in the national flood risk equation, outpacing the effects of increased chance of flood occurrence and the degradation of levee condition.”

Projected federal spending on levees in the next five years is expected to be just $1.13 billion, leaving a $48.87 billion shortfall in needed funding. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “there are 881 counties — or 28% of all counties in the United States — that contain levees or other kinds of flood control and protection systems.” More than half of the U.S. population resides in those counties. 

Overall, the U.S. has about $2.2 trillion in unaddressed infrastructure needs. The Congressional Progressive Caucus budget that was released earlier this month includes $30 billion “as start-up costs for a national infrastructure bank that would leverage private financing to help rebuild America’s public capital stock,” and budgets for $1.2 trillion in public investment over the next five years.

And we’re the richest country in the world.  Just imagine what climate change will do to much poorer countries (see “Bolivia: Where adaptation equals abandonment”).

Related posts:

• “Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as effective in reducing future misery:  Rhetorical adaptation, however, is a political winner. Too bad it means preventable suffering for billions.”
• Conservatives oppose adaptation, too:  Sen. John Barrasso continued his campaign to stop the Obama administration from incorporating climate change into federal plans and policies, taking aim at an interagency report released in October that proposed ways for the federal government to respond to increased frequency of severe weather events and other effects of global warming…

http://climateprogress.org/2011/04/28/tennessee-valley-authority-major-weather-event-history/#more-47784