L. Ruby Leung

Mid-Century Ensemble Regional Climate Change Scenarios for the Western United States

To study the impacts of climate change on water resources in the western U.S., global climate simulations were produced using the National Center for Atmospheric Research/Department of Energy (NCAR/DOE) Parallel Climate Model (PCM). The Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) was used to downscale the PCM control (20 years) and three future(2040–2060) climate simulations to yield ensemble regional climate simulations at 40 km spatial resolution for the western U.S. This paper describes the regional simulations and focuses on the hydroclimate conditions in the Columbia River Basin (CRB) and Sacramento-San Joaquin River (SSJ) Basin. Results based on global and regional simulations show that by mid-century, the average regional warming of 1 to 2.5 °C strongly affects snowpack in the western U.S. Along coastal mountains, reduction in annual snowpack was about70% as indicated by the regional simulations. Besides changes in mean temperature, precipitation, and snowpack, cold season extreme daily precipitation increased by 5 to 15 mm/day (15–20%) along theCascades and the Sierra. The warming resulted in increased rainfall at the expense of reduced snowfall, and reduced snow accumulation (or earlier snowmelt) during the cold season. In the CRB, these changes were accompanied by more frequent rain-on-snow events. Overall, they induced higher likelihood of wintertime flooding and reduced runoff and soil moisture in the summer. Changes in surface water and energy budgets in the CRB and SSJ basin were affected mainly by changes in surface temperature, which were statistically significant at the 0.95 confidence level. Changes in precipitation, while spatially incoherent, were not statistically significant except for the drying trend during summer. Because snow and runoff are highly sensitive tospatial distributions of temperature and precipitation, this study shows that (1) downscaling provides more realistic estimates of hydrologic impacts in mountainous regions such as the western U.S., and (2) despite relatively small changes in temperature and precipitation, changes in snowpack and runoff can be much larger on monthly to seasonal time scales because the effects of temperature and precipitation are integrated over time and space through various surface hydrological and land-atmosphere feedback processes. Although the results reported in this study were derived from an ensemble of regional climate simulations driven by a global climate model that displays low climate sensitivity compared with most other models, climate change was found to significantly affect water resources in the western U.S. by the mid twenty-first century.

More frequent cloud‐free sky and less surface solar radiation in China from 1955 to 2000

Newly available data from extended weather stations and time period reveal that much of China has experienced statistically significant decreases in total cloud cover and low cloud cover over roughly the last half of the Twentieth century. This conclusion is supported by our recent analysis of the more reliably observed frequency of cloud-free sky and overcast sky. The total cloud cover and low cloud cover have decreased 0.88% and 0.33% per decade, respectively, and cloud-free days have increased 0.60% and overcast days decreased 0.78% per decade in China from 1954-2001. Meanwhile, both solar radiation and pan evaporation have decreased in most parts of China, with solar radiation decreasing 3.1 W/m2 and pan evaporation decreasing 39 mm per decade. Combined with other evidences documented in previous studies, we conjectured that increased air pollution may have produced a fog-like haze that reflected/absorbed radiation from the sun and resulted in less solar radiation reaching the surface, despite concurrent upward trends in cloud-free skies over China.

Regional climate research: Needs and opportunities

Abstract The Workshop on Regional Climate Research: Needs and Opportunities was held 2–4 April 2001 at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado. The workshop was cosponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy with the goals to 1) assess current approaches used in downscaling; 2) inform program managers of the status of regional climate research; and 3) define a future path for regional climate research. The workshop was organized into five sessions with presentations and discussion to address issues related to the regional climate problem, global climate modeling, statistical and dynamical downscaling, data and model diagnostics and validation, and downscaling applications. Sixty-eight invited participants attended the workshop from the U.S. and international research community. This report summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop and highlights the recommendations derived from the meeting. Important general recommendations include the...

Prediction of cloud droplet number in a general circulation model

A predictive treatment of droplet number is applied to both a single-column cloud model and a global circulation model. Droplet number is predicted from the droplet number balance, which accounts for droplet nucleation, mixing, and droplet loss due to autoconversion of droplets to rain and collection by rain, ice, and snow. Droplet nucleation is parameterized in terms of the parameters of a lognormal aerosol size distribution and in terms of a Gaussian probability distribution of vertical velocity within each grid cell. The predicted droplet number is found to be significantly less than observations unless vertical resolution provides at least 10 levels within the planetary boundary layer. When droplet number is simply diagnosed from the number nucleated, droplet concentrations are found to be consistently greater than with the predictive treatment. Predicted droplet number concentrations are found to be nonlinearly related to aerosol number concentration.

Dominant role by vertical wind shear in regulating aerosol effects on deep convective clouds

[1] Aerosol-cloud interaction is recognized as one of the key factors influencing cloud properties and precipitation regimes across local, regional, and global scales and remains one of the largest uncertainties in understanding and projecting future climate changes. Deep convective clouds (DCCs) play a crucial role in the general circulation, energy balance, and hydrological cycle of our climate system. The complex aerosol-DCC interactions continue to be puzzling as more ‘‘aerosol effects’’ unfold, and systematic assessment of such effects is lacking. Here we systematically assess the aerosol effects on isolated DCCs based on cloud-resolving model simulations with spectral bin cloud microphysics. We find a dominant role of vertical wind shear in regulating aerosol effects on isolated DCCs, i.e., vertical wind shear qualitatively determines whether aerosols suppress or enhance convective strength. Increasing aerosols always suppresses convection under strong wind shear and invigorates convection under weak wind shear until this effect saturates at an optimal aerosol loading. We also found that the decreasing rate of convective strength is greater in the humid air than that in the dry air when wind shear is strong. Our findings may resolve some of the seemingly contradictory results among past studies by considering the dominant effect of wind shear. Our results can provide the insights to better parameterize aerosol effects on convection by adding the factor of wind shear to the entrainment term, which could reduce uncertainties associated with aerosol effects on climate forcing.

Hydroclimate of the Western United States Based on Observations and Regional Climate Simulation of 1981-2000. Part I: Seasonal Statistics

The regional climate of the western United States shows clear footprints of interaction between atmospheric circulation and orography. The unique features of this diverse climate regime challenges climate modeling. This paper provides detailed analyses of observations and regional climate simulations to improve our understanding and modeling of the climate of this region. The primary data used in this study are the 1/88 gridded temperature and precipitation based on station observations and the NCEP‐NCAR global reanalyses. These data were used to evaluate a 20-yr regional climate simulation performed using the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University‐National Center for Atmospheric Research (Penn State‐NCAR) Mesoscale Model (MM5) driven by large-scale conditions of the NCEP‐NCAR reanalyses. Regional climate features examined include seasonal mean and extreme precipitation; distribution of precipitation rates; and precipitation intensity, frequency, and seasonality. The relationships between precipitation and surface temperature are also analyzed as a means to evaluate how well regional climate simulations can be used to simulate surface hydrology, and relationships between precipitation and elevation are analyzed as diagnostics of the impacts of surface topography and spatial resolution. The latter was performed at five east‐west transects that cut across various topographic features in the western United States. These analyses suggest that the regional simulation realistically captures many regional climate features. The simulated seasonal mean and extreme precipitation are comparable to observations. The regional simulation produces precipitation over a wide range of precipitation rates comparable to observations. Obvious biases in the simulation include the oversimulation of precipitation in the basins and intermountain West during the cold season, and the undersimulation in the Southwest in the warm season. There is a tendency of reduced precipitation frequency rather than intensity in the simulation during the summer in the Northwest and Southwest, which leads to the insufficient summer mean precipitation in those areas. Because of the general warm biases in the simulation, there is also a tendency for more precipitation events to be associated with warmer temperatures, which can affect the simulation of snowpack and runoff.

Regional climate effects of aerosols over China: modeling and observation

We present regional simulations of aerosol properties, direct radiative forcing and aerosol climatic effects over China, and compare the simulations with observed aerosol characteristics and climatic data over the region. The climate simulations are performed with a regional climate model, which is shown to capture the spatial distribution and seasonal pattern of temperature and precipitation. Aerosol concentrations are obtained from a global tracer-transport model and are provided to the regional model for the calculation of radiative forcing. Different aerosols are included: sulfate, organic carbon, black carbon, mineral dust, and sea salt and MSA particles. Generally, the aerosol optical depth is well simulated in both magnitude and spatial distribution. The direct radiative forcing of the aerosol is in the range –1 to –14 W m−2 in autumn and summer and −1 to –9 W m−2 in spring and winter, with substantial spatial variability at the regional scale. A strong maximum in aerosol optical depth and negative radiative forcing is found over the Sichuan Basin. The negative radiative forcing of aerosol induces a surface cooling in the range –0.6 to –1.2 °C in autumn and winter, –0.3 to –0.6 °C in spring and 0.0 to –0.9 °C in summer throughout East China. The aerosol-induced cooling is mainly due to a decrease in daytime maximum temperature. The cooling is maximum and is statistically significant over the Sichuan Basin. The effect of aerosol on precipitation is not evident in our simulations. The temporal and spatial patterns of the temperature trends observed in the second half of the twentieth century, including different trends for daily maximum and minimum temperature, are at least qualitatively consistent with the simulated aerosol-induced cooling over the Sichuan Basin and East China. This result supports the hypothesis that the observed temperature trends during the latter decades of the twentieth century, especially the cooling trends over the Sichuan Basin and some parts of East China, are at least partly related to the cooling induced by increasing atmospheric aerosol loadings over the region.

Evaluating runoff simulations from the Community Land Model 4.0 using observations from flux towers and a mountainous watershed

[1] Previous studies using the Community Land Model (CLM) focused on simulating land-atmosphere interactions and water balance on continental to global scales, with limited attention paid to its capability for hydrologic simulations at watershed or regional scales. This study evaluates the performance of CLM 4.0 (CLM4) for hydrologic simulations and explores possible directions of improvement. Specifically, it is found that CLM4 tends to produce unrealistically large temporal variations of runoff for applications at a mountainous catchment in the northwest United States, where subsurface runoff is dominant, as well as at a few flux tower sites spanning a wide range of climate and site conditions in the United States. Runoff simulations from CLM4 can be improved by (1) increasing spatial resolution of the land surface representations and (2) calibrating model parameter values. We also demonstrate that runoff simulations may be improved by implementing alternative runoff generation schemes such as those from the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model or the TOPMODEL formulations with a more general power law-based transmissivity profile, which will be explored in future studies. This study also highlights the importance of evaluating both energy and water fluxes in the application of land surface models across multiple scales.

Modeling the Effects of Groundwater-Fed Irrigation on Terrestrial Hydrology over the Conterminous United States

Human alteration of the land surface hydrologic cycle is substantial. Recent studies suggest that local water management practices including groundwater pumping and irrigation could significantly alter the quantity and distribution of water in the terrestrial system, with potential impacts on weather and climate through land‐ atmosphere feedbacks. In this study, the authors incorporated a groundwater withdrawal scheme into the Community Land Model, version 4 (CLM4). To simulate the impact of irrigation realistically, they calibrated the CLM4 simulated irrigation amount against observations from agriculture censuses at the county scale over the conterminous United States. The water used for irrigation was then removed from the surface runoff and groundwater aquifer according to a ratio determined from the county-level agricultural census data. On the basis of the simulations, the impact of groundwater withdrawals for irrigation on land surface and subsurface fluxes were investigated. The results suggest that the impacts of irrigation on latent heat flux and potential recharge when water is withdrawn from surface water alone or from both surface and groundwater are comparable and local to the irrigation areas. However, when water is withdrawn from groundwater for irrigation, greater effects on the subsurface water balance are found, leading to significant depletion of groundwater storage in regions with low recharge rate and high groundwater exploitation rate. The results underscore the importance of local hydrologic feedbacks in governing hydrologic response to anthropogenic change in CLM4 and the need to more realistically simulate the two-way interactions among surface water, groundwater, and atmosphere to better understand the impacts of groundwater pumping on irrigation efficiency and climate.

Hydroclimate of the Western United States Based on Observations and Regional Climate Simulation of 1981–2000. Part II: Mesoscale ENSO Anomalies

Abstract The hydroclimate of the western United States is influenced by strong interannual variability of atmospheric circulation, much of which is associated with the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Precipitation anomalies during ENSO often show opposite and spatially coherent dry and wet patterns in the Northwest and California or vice versa. The role of orography in establishing mesoscale ENSO anomalies in the western United States is examined based on observed precipitation and temperature data at 1/8° spatial resolution and a regional climate simulation at 40-km spatial resolution. Results show that during El Nino or La Nina winters, strong precipitation anomalies are found in northern California, along the southern California coast, and in the northwest mountains such as the Olympic Mountains, the Cascades, and the northern Rockies. These spatial features, which are strongly affected by topography, are surprisingly well reproduced by the regional climate simulation. A spatial feature investigat...