Science Daily July 11, 2019 An international team of researchers (Germany, France, Italy) has shown that the presence of ammonium nitrate particles in the upper troposphere from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Western Pacific is fed by convection that transports large amounts of ammonia from surface sources into the upper troposphere. Solid ammonium nitrate particles in the upper troposphere play a hitherto neglected role in ice cloud formation and aerosol indirect radiative forcing…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Category Archives: Climatology
Computer scientists predict lightning and thunder with the help of artificial intelligence
Science Daily June 26, 2019 Current satellite-based approaches to predict thunderstorms are usually based on the analysis of the observed brightness temperatures in different spectral channels and emit a warning if a critical threshold is reached. Researchers in Germany have developed a method using the error of two-dimensional optical flow algorithms applied to images of meteorological satellites as a feature for machine learning models. They trained different tree classifier models as well as a neural network to predict lightning. The results show a high accuracy of 96% for predictions over the next 15 minutes which slightly decreases with increasing forecast […]
Distant processes influence marine heatwaves around the world
Science Daily June 17, 2019 An international team of researchers (Australia, USA – University of Washington, Canada, Spain, UK) considered marine heatwaves and their drivers in 22 regions across four ocean and climate zones, based on published papers since 1950. They found that marine heatwaves may be influenced by several factors in combination, where processes may be both local and remote to the events, other climate phenomena such as El Niño — Southern Oscillation or the North Atlantic Oscillation, with their centre-of-action in one ocean basin can increase the odds of marine heatwaves in other regions thousands of kilometres away. […]
Here are 10 ways AI could help fight climate change
MIT Technology Review June 20, 2019 A team of researchers in the US led by the University of Pennsylvania has developed a road map suggesting how machine learning can help save our planet and humanity from imminent peril. 10 of the “high leverage” recommendations from the report are: Improve predictions of how much electricity we need, Discover new materials, Optimize how freight is routed, Lower barriers to electric-vehicle adoption, Help make buildings more efficient, Create better estimates of how much energy we are consuming, Optimize supply chains, Make precision agriculture possible at scale, Improve deforestation tracking, Nudge consumers to change […]
‘Impossible’ research produces 400-year El Niño record, revealing startling changes
Science Daily May 6, 2019 Researchers in Australia have identified spatial and temporal patterns in observed sea surface temperatures that distinguish the evolution of Eastern and Central Pacific El Niño events in the tropical Pacific for the past four centuries, using patterns recorded by a network of 27 seasonally resolved coral records. They found a simultaneous increase in Central Pacific events and a decrease in Eastern Pacific events since the late twentieth century. Compared to the past four centuries, the most recent 30-year period includes fewer, but more intense, Eastern Pacific El Niño events. Having a better understanding of how […]
Climate extremes: Impact on global crop yield variations
Science Daily May 3, 2019 An international team of researchers (Australia, Spain. Germany USA – University of M Minnesota, Switzerland) analyzed the impacts of climate extremes on yield anomalies of maize, soybeans, rice and spring wheat at the global scale using yield data and applying a machine-learning algorithm. They found that growing season climate factors explain 20%–49% of the variance of yield anomalies, with 18%–43% of the explained variance attributable to climate extremes. Temperature-related extremes show a stronger association with yield anomalies than precipitation-related factors. The hotspot regions that are critical for global production include North America for maize, spring […]
Climate panel disbanded by Trump, now regrouped, releases its report
Science Daily April 4, 2019 With support from the Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York State and the American Meteorological Society, the Independent Advisory Committee on Applied Climate Assessment released a report that calls for the creation of the Science to Climate Action Network (SCAN) which is independent of the federal government and comprises experts from civil society and state, local, and tribal settings. By providing hubs for businesses, communities and academics to work together on practical challenges, the network is designed to produce guidance for using science to update infrastructure and building codes, reduce wildfire risk, manage flooding, […]
Predicting the monsoon a year ahead
Science Daily February 22, 2019 Researchers at the City College of New York estimate the predictability horizon of monsoon precipitation amount by systematically comparing statistical forecasts made using information from different lead times before the monsoon start. Linear and nonlinear prediction methods are considered that use the leading modes of the global sea surface temperature field to forecast monsoon-season (June-September) total precipitation. Forecasts were found to outperform a climatology baseline up to at least 1 year ahead, with a nonlinear method (random forest) on average outperforming linear regression with group lasso, although with greater variability in skill across locations and […]
Lightning’s electromagnetic fields may have protective properties
Space Daily February 11, 2019 Researchers in Israel repot that in the course of numerous laboratory experiments, where they induced fields similar to those in the atmosphere, they witnessed significant effects on living heart cells of rats within 30-40 minutes. Extremely weak magnetic fields in the 7.6-8Hz frequency range induced several effects when applied to rat cardiac cells, including reductions in spontaneous contractions, calcium transients and the release of Creatine Kinase. It may explain why all living organisms have electrical activity in the same ELF spectral range. This may have some therapeutic implications down the line, since these ELF fields […]
Passing aircraft wring extra snow and rain out of clouds
Science Daily January 31, 2019 Researchers in the UK observed that existing precipitation is enhanced locally on spatial scales from a few kilometers to several tens of kilometers. The precipitation intensity in these localized areas was 6‐14 times higher than the background large‐scale precipitation rate. Surface observations and dual‐polarization radar data indicate that snowflakes within the ice portion of the falling precipitation in the intensification regions are larger and more isotropic than in the surrounding precipitation. There appears to be an increase in the ice particle number concentration within the intensification region. The observed events were linked to arriving or […]