Phys.org August 26, 2021 Central Asia is one of the major food-producing regions in the world. Its agricultural production relies heavily on climate conditions, especially precipitation. Researchers in China found that both the decadal scale warming over the tropical Pacific and North Atlantic are favorable for wetter conditions over Central Asia. During the positive phase of tropical Pacific decadal variability (TPDV) (warm tropical Pacific), the sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over tropical Pacific can lead to more precipitation over Central Asia, especially the southern and southeastern region. The warm phase of AMV (warm North Atlantic) can excite a circumglobal teleconnection […]
Category Archives: Climatology
Can East Asian monsoon enhancement induce global cooling?
Phys.org August 2, 2021 The strong erosion in the Himalayas was assumed to be a primary driver of Cenozoic atmospheric CO2 decline and global cooling predominantly through accelerating silicate chemical weathering in the India-Asia collision zone or through effective burial of organic carbon in the nearby Bengal Fan in South Asia. An international team of researchers (China, France) has found that the northward advance of the East Asian monsoon on tectonically inactive subtropical China induced globally significant silicate weathering atmospheric CO2 sink. The organic carbon burial flux is approximately 25% of the contemporary CO2 consumption by silicate weathering. The unusual […]
Global evidence links rise in extreme precipitation to human-driven climate change
Phys.org July 7, 2021 Detecting anthropogenic forcing is difficult to detect in observational record. Researchers at UCLA used artificial neural networks to find patterns of extreme precipitation in weather records. They found multiple lines of evidence that human activity has intensified extreme precipitation during recent decades. Even when the data sets were widely different, they were able to see the human influence…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Leading scientists warn of global impacts as Antarctic nears tipping points
Phys.org June 16, 2021 According to a panel of leading Antarctic scientists human-driven climate change is pushing the Antarctic towards numerous tipping points that will impact wider earth systems, with profound implications for humanity and biodiversity. They examine how climate change is rapidly pushing five critical, interconnected processes in the Antarctic Southern Ocean towards substantial changes. They warn that disrupting these processes may disproportionately exacerbate global climate change and have widespread impacts on marine and human life worldwide, due to the region’s central role in regulating our earth systems. According to the group we can build resilience in the Antarctic […]
New climate predictions increase likelihood of temporarily reaching 1.5 °C in next 5 years
World Meteorological Organization May 27, 2021 According to the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update https://hadleyserver.metoffice.gov.uk/wmolc/ , produced by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, there is about a 40% chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level in at least one of the next five years – and these odds are increasing with time, according to a new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). There is a 90% likelihood of at least one year between 2021-2025 becoming the warmest on record. This is mainly due to using an improved temperature dataset […]
Trace gases from ocean are source of particles accelerating Antarctic climate change
Phys.org May 13, 2021 An international team of researchers (UK, Spain, Saudi Arabia) studied the summertime open ocean and coastal new particle formation in the Antarctic Peninsula region based on both ship and station measurements. The rates of particle formation relative to sulfuric acid concentrations, as well as the sulfuric acid dimer-to-monomer ratios, were similar to those seen for sulfuric acid–dimethylamine–water nucleation. Numerous sulfuric acid–amine peaks were identified during new particle formation events, providing evidence that alkylamines were the bases that facilitated sulfuric acid nucleation. Most new particle formation events occurred in air masses arriving from the ice-covered Weddell Sea […]
Climate change: Amazon may be turning from friend to foe
Phys.org April 30, 2021 Spatial–temporal dynamics of aboveground biomass (AGB) and forest area affect the carbon cycle, climate, and biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon. An international team of researchers (USA – University of Oklahoma, Caltech, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, France, Denmark, China, UK) investigated interannual changes in AGB and forest area by analysing satellite-based annual AGB and forest area datasets. They found that the gross forest area loss was larger in 2019 than in 2015, possibly due to recent loosening of forest protection policies. However, the net AGB loss was three times smaller in 2019 than in 2015. During 2010–2019, […]
Climate has shifted the axis of the Earth, study finds
Science Daily April 25, 2021 Generally, polar motion is caused by changes in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, oceans, or solid Earth. However, short‐term observational records of key information in the hydrosphere limit a better understanding of new polar drift in the 1990s. An international team of researchers (China, Denmark) has introduced a novel approach to quantify the contribution from changes in terrestrial water storage by comparing its drift path under two different scenarios. One scenario assumes that the terrestrial water storage change throughout the entire study period (1981–2020) is similar to that observed recently (2002–2020). The second scenario assumes that it […]
Lightning strikes will more than double in Arctic as climate warms
Science Daily April 5, 2021 An international team of researchers (USA – UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Netherlands) projected how lightning in high-latitude boreal forests and Arctic tundra regions will change across North America and Eurasia as the climate continues warming and Arctic weather during summertime will be closer to those seen today far to the south, where lightning storms are more common. Looking at over-twenty-year-old NASA satellite data on lighting strikes in northern regions they constructed a relationship between the flash rate and climatic factors. They estimated a significant increase in lightning strikes as a result […]
Aerosol formation in clouds
Science Daily March 24, 2021 Cloud processing is potentially important for secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation, a major aerosol component: however, laboratory experiments fail to mimic this process under atmospherically relevant conditions. An international team of researchers (Switzerland, UK, USA – Carnegie Mellon University, industry) developed a wetted-wall flow reactor to simulate aqueous-phase processing of isoprene oxidation products (iOP) in cloud droplets. They found that 50 to 70% (in moles) of iOP partition into the aqueous cloud phase, where they rapidly react with OH radicals, producing SOA. Integrating their experimental results into a global model, they showed that clouds effectively […]